Participating in the Events of our Redemption

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

We are blest in our parish with a number of talented actors and actresses who perform in their school plays and musicals, and even in the productions at the Croswell.  Their talent to bring to life a character from a certain time period in the past, or even in an imaginary world, helps tell a story, and remind us of those past events, or help us to dream of fantastic stories.

In many ways we can see these liturgies that we celebrate during Holy Week like the performances on the stage.  Today and on Good Friday the Gospel of the Passion of the Lord will be read by many readers, not just the priest or deacon.  We began today by, in a sense, re-enacting Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem.  Thursday I will wash the feet of six people as a reminder that we are to serve.

But if we think that we are simply remembering a past event, from which we are removed by almost 2,000 years, then we do not understand the Church’s liturgy.  Because we are not actors in a performance in the Mass.  We are participants in the actual events of our redemption.  We do not put on a show that remind us of what Jesus did for us.  We are invited to engage in the very events and experience them in sacramental signs.  Pope St. Leo the Great said, “What was visible in our Savior has passed over into his mysteries.”  Another word for mysteries in the sense that Pope Leo used it was Sacraments, rites that connect us to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.  

As we gathered before Mass, we joined the crowd at Bethphage and waved our palms, welcoming our Messiah into Jerusalem as we walked into an icon of the heavenly Jerusalem, this church building.  As we see others’ feet being washed, Jesus our Lord and Master humbles Himself for us and reminds us that to follow Him means to serve others.  As we enter into the Eucharistic Prayer, we go to Calvary, at the foot of the cross, and see the sacrifice of the spotless Lamb of God, who shed His Precious Blood out of love for us.  And as we receive the Eucharist worthily, we participate in that very sacrifice by which we are saved.  These events are not something that are far removed, but, by the power of the Holy Spirit, enter into our time and are supposed to have a real effect on our lives.

Many of us struggle with our Lenten promises.  Some of us have fallen, or never really began as we wanted.  In this last week of Lent, let us walk with Jesus on his pilgrimage to the crucifixion.  Let us not simply remember what Jesus did for us, but partake in the mysteries, the rites, which bring His life, death, and resurrection to us.  Because the beauty of our Catholic faith is that we not only remember what Jesus did for us, but we have the opportunity to be joined to our salvation and experience first-hand to what extent God would go to prove His love for us.