Palm Sunday: Put on the Mind of Christ
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The passion narrative in Luke presents the suffering and death of Jesus as a drama involving multiple characters surrounding Jesus. Some oppose him, others are sympathetic to him, and others are indifferent.
Considering the narrative, it is suggested to use it as a template for personal reflection as we go through Holy Week. Whose shoes do I tend to wear the most often or easily?
How often or easily do I, like Judas, put personal gain or personal well-being above the good of others? How often or easily do I, like Peter, abandon others in their times of most need, out of fear or counting the cost?
How often or easily do I, like Pilate, judge others with or without the moral standing to do so? How often or easily do I, like the religious leaders, accuse and scapegoat the weak, disenfranchised, underprivileged, or vulnerable? How often or easily do I, like the crowds, root for the powerful or merely follow popular opinions or ideas without questioning them? How often or easily do I, like the soldiers, seek to exercise undue power over those around me to control or subjugate them? How often or easily do I, like Barabbas, thinking as the world does, become an enemy of the cross?
How often or easily do I, like the bystanders, watch from a distance, perhaps with indignation or indifference, the suffering of others?
How often or easily do I, like Veronica, sympathize with victims and their plight? How often or easily do I go out of my way, again like Veronica, to do the smallest thing to improve someone else’s life or experience? How often or easily do I, like Simon of Cyrene, help others carry their crosses? How often or easily do I, like the women of Jerusalem, weep due to injustices committed against others? How often or easily do I, like Joseph of Arimathea, offer others hospitality?
How often or easily do I, like the thief on Jesus’s left, remain impenitent, unrepentant and mock God’s gifts?
How often or easily do I, like the thief on Jesus’s right, repent and ask for God’s mercy not just in my heart but with living actions to show it? How often or easily do I, like the innocent Jesus, out of pure love, enter solidarity with the vulnerable, the poor, the powerless, the voiceless, the suffering, the unloved, and the outcast, and thus strive to transform their situation from within? How often or easily do I entrust everything to God? How easily do I forgive? How often or easily do I feel sorry for others instead of feeling sorry for myself? How easily are the following words of Jesus applicable to me? “For I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me” (Mt 25:35ff). May we listen to the passion narrative as a cry for conversion, for putting on the mind of Christ, for embracing the attitudes of the Kingdom of God. Amen
Thank you Fr