Palm Sunday
From the perspective of anyone without the faith, the life of Christ was one gigantic failure. His obituary might have read something like this:
Of spurious ancestry, born in a dirty stable, practiced a back-breaking, low-paying trade, turned himself into a rabbi without an education, had a flair for creating enthusiasm among the crowds by his slick talk and contrived prodigies, exalted as if he were the Messiah King, but finally unmasked as an imposter and sentenced to capital punishment by both the religious and civil authorities: He got what He deserved.
So thinks the world, so judges the world, with the eyes of the flesh. Of course, this makes sense because what is in the world, what reigns in the world, is the triple concupiscence of the flesh, of the eyes and of pride. From that perspective, there was no success in the life of Christ. He did not seek pleasure. Paul will later say: non sibi placuit – Christ did not please Himself (Rm 15:3). He did not put Himself forward as worldliness do, even though He had a few opportunities to become great when the people wanted to come and make Him king, but He foolishly ran away from His chance for glory. But the ways of God are not the ways of men. God has no use for worldly ambition and its vanity. God is truth, and truth alone has lasting weight and value.
The victory won by Our Lord is the victory over the triple concupiscence. He came precisely in order to trample underfoot all the world holds dear. Christ abhors what pleases the world, and He loves what the world hates because the world has placed itself under the power of the Evil One (cf. 1 Jn 5:19). To quote Psalm 26 that we sang yesterday in the communion antiphon: Iniquity lieth to itself. Wickedness tells lies to others, but first and foremost, it tells lies to itself, and the first of those lies is that life is about grabbing as much pleasure, fame, and money as you can, and those who do not have these are unhappy. Such is the great lie the world tells itself, but that Christ tramples underfoot with His eternal truth.
This, in a nutshell, is the mystery of Palm Sunday, the Mass of the Passion preceded by the triumph of the palms. Palms are the sign of victory, and the victory that Christ wins happens from the very beginning of His life on earth, that life which the Imitation of Christ tells us was in its entirety cross and martyrdom. But the victory reaches its climax precisely in His Passion. Many people think, even Christians, that His death was a failure but His resurrection a success. No, that is worldly ambition speaking. It is His death that is the victory because, in it, He crushes all that leads away from God; He destroys death by Himself undergoing death, and it is only because of this that His resurrection will come to certify that victory and make it manifest.
This truly Christian mentality is one that we do not readily accept; even less do we become adept at it; it takes effort and will, and for most, it takes a lifetime. Few are able to say with St Paul Quotidie morior – I die each day (1 Cor 15:31). For most of us, it won’t be until we undergo death ourselves that we will let go of our vanity and pride, the supreme humiliation of sickness and death is God’s loving hand forcing us to commune with the truth before it’s too late. Blessed are those, however, who learn the lesson quicker and accept to die to themselves in small ways each day. For them, the ultimate trial will have been prepared by practice, and it will be taken in stride. This is why the Church places the crucifix before our eyes; it is why She urges us to take part in the mystery of the Mass; it is why each year She exhorts all the faithful to follow Our Lord to Calvary.
We are very hard-headed. In spite of Our Lord’s example, we continue to think that the happy life is the one that goes from success to success, the life lived in the limelight, with every possible pleasure and satisfaction, filled with applause. The Lord gently but firmly and consistently invites us to wake up from our torpor and finally accept that such is not the way. The way, the only way, is to accept to be treated like He was treated.
When the world applauds, beware. When the world condemns, rejoice. This is what St Peter tried to get across to the first generation of Christians when he wrote: Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, blessed are you, because the Spirit of glory of God rests upon you (1Pt 4:12-14).
If this is challenging, let us turn to the Mother of Sorrows. The soldiers who crucified Our Lord were trained to cause the maximum amount of torture to the condemned criminals that were put in their hands. If they allowed the Mother of Our Lord to approach the cross, in their thinking, it would only increase the sufferings of both. But Mary was prepared because she had long pondered the words of her Son which He had pronounced in His very first sermon: Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven (Mt 5:11-12).
Amen.
