Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord [C]
Luke 19:28-40  +  Isaiah 50:4-7  +  Philippians 2:6-11  +  Luke 22:14—23:56

… he humbled himself, / becoming obedient to the point of death, / even death on a cross.

The Roman Missal is the book from which the priest offers most of the prayers at Holy Mass.  During most of Holy Mass, it rests upon the altar of sacrifice.  Within this book, in the header for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, it states:  “In the Dioceses of the United States, the practice of covering crosses and images throughout the church from this Sunday may be observed.”

The verb used is “may be observed”.  That begs the question:  ought this practice be observed?  We might also question why this practice may be observed from that particular Sunday of Lent onwards.  Those two questions are related.

The latter question is partly answered by the prayer that the priest prays before the ancient hymn known as the Sanctus (“Holy, Holy, Holy”).  This prayer is called the Preface because it introduces the Eucharistic Prayer.  The Preface changes throughout the Church year, relating the day’s season or feast to the Eucharistic Prayer.

On the weekdays following the Fifth Sunday of Lent—that is, this past week—the Roman Missal directs the priest to pray “Preface I of the Passion of the Lord”.  On the weekdays between Palm Sunday and the start of the Sacred Triduum, the priest prays “Preface II of the Passion of the Lord”.  This focus upon the Passion of the Christ is why these two weeks are traditionally called “Passiontide”.

Passiontide is part of Lent.  We might even say that it’s a gradation of Lent.  Consider:  when you climb an imposing mountain, you ascend in stages.  At the mountain’s base, the climb is easier.  Higher up, the difficulty increases as rock formations and other obstacles present themselves.  But when you reach the mountain’s tree line, an even more serious approach is required, as you cope with rarified air.

To apply that analogy to the Church’s preparation for Easter, the peak of the mountain—the goal of the climb—is the Sacred Triduum:  the three days during which the Church celebrates Jesus’ Last Supper, Death, and Resurrection.  The prior week and a half—Passiontide—is the last stretch of climb in rarified air.  Prior to Passiontide, the majority of the climb stretches from Ash Wednesday until the Sunday before Palm Sunday.  What’s more, in the calendar of the Extraordinary Form of Holy Mass, there is a period of preparation for the Sacred Triduum even before Ash Wednesday:  this period starts on the ninth Sunday before Easter, and is called Septuagesima.

On Palm Sunday, two Gospel passages are proclaimed:  one at the start of Mass and the other at the usual time of the Gospel.  The first Gospel passage this Sunday is easy to hear.  The crowds praise Jesus.  They hail Jesus as their Messiah.  All along, however, Jesus knows that their praise is hollow.  He hears their words, but He knows their hearts.  He knows the climb that stretches out before Him in the week to come.

The events proclaimed in the Passion narrative are the events of Good Friday, the summit of the mount.  Upon Mount Calvary, God the Father sacrifices His Son, Mary sacrifices her Son, and Jesus sacrifices His whole self:  Body and Blood, soul and divinity.  Few of Jesus’ disciples were both able and willing to ascend and remain with Jesus at the top of this mountain.  Few of them had pure faith.

While the Passion narrative is proclaimed on Palm Sunday at the usual time of the Gospel Reading, the Church proclaims the Passion narrative a second time during Holy Week, as part of the Good Friday Liturgy.  There is a difference between these two proclamations, however.  On Good Friday, it is always the Passion narrative from St. John’s Gospel account that’s proclaimed.  On Palm Sunday, the Passion narrative comes from one of the other three Gospel accounts.  These narratives complement each other and focus our attention on different aspects of Jesus’ suffering for us.

Jesus invites you to spend this week with Him as He makes His ascent.  It’s easier for you to praise Jesus this Palm Sunday.  It’s more difficult to share in His self-offering on Mount Calvary, as it demands a more pure faith.  God is calling us to rely solely upon the sight that comes from faith, and to keep the eyes of the soul fixed upon the glory of Christ crucified.

Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Genesis 17:3-9  +  John 8:51-59

“Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.”

While yesterday’s Gospel Reading looked in part upon Abraham, today’s Scriptures double down on this focus.  Today both the First Reading and Gospel Reading look at “our father in faith”.  In fact, it is Abraham as father that is the specific focus.

In the First Reading, God changes Abram’s name to “Abraham”.  This new name can be literally translated as “father of many”.  But God’s own explanation of why he’s bestowing this new name is worth our attention:  “for I am making you the father of a host of nations.  I will render you exceedingly fertile; I will make nations of you; kings shall stem from you.”  You could use any one of these four phrases for meditation, especially in terms of how this call from God to Abraham foreshadows the mission of Jesus Christ, who fulfills Abraham’s call in a new way.

Yet there’s another important aspect of God’s covenant with Abraham that’s not captured by these four phrases.  Later in the First Reading, God vows:  “I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are now staying, the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession”.  The Holy Land for the people of the Old Testament was a geographic place upon the earth, with Jerusalem as its capital, and the Temple at the capital’s center.  This is where we Christians need to understand the “Holy Land” of God’s covenant with Abraham in a new way:  the Holy Land is Heaven; its capital is Christ, the Head of the Church; and the Temple is the Cross on Calvary, from which Christ’s self-sacrifice radiates throughout human history, leading the faithful of Christ’s Mystical Body into the heavenly embrace of God the Father.

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Daniel 3:14-20,91-92,95  +  John 8:31-42

“… you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Historically, freedom for the Jews was based upon two figures of their past.  First, descent from Abraham—their father in faith—was considered the foundation of the People of God.  Second in importance was adherence to the Law of Moses, who led God’s People from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.  Yet the Gospel accounts show that many in Jesus’ day who were living in the Holy Land were in fact slaves.

Jesus, we might say, taught that authentic and lasting freedom comes from adherence to the truth.  More significant than this teaching, however, is  that Jesus revealed Himself to be Truth incarnate.  As we draw closer to Holy Week, we might anticipate Pontius Pilate’s feckless query:  “Truth?  What is truth?”  In our own culture, it’s claimed that truth can be manufactured according to one’s own will, if one even wishes to bother with the idea of “truth”.  The human person, in this false view of reality, is free to manipulate truth at will.  Jesus reveals a much more demanding relationship between truth and freedom.

Jesus declares “to those Jews who believed in him, ‘If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’”  Each person who seeks to follow Jesus must reckon with this declaration by first believing in Jesus.  Through belief—that is, through faith—the Christian disciple can remain in Jesus’ word.  In all things, Jesus’ word is a call:  a call to self-sacrifice for the love of God and neighbor.  Living out this truth is the only means by which to find authentic and eternal freedom.

Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Numbers 21:4-9  +  John 8:21-30

“When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM ….”

“When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM ….”  We might wonder:  when Jesus spoke these words, did the Pharisees realize that Jesus was foretelling His being lifted up on the Cross?  It’s possible that the Pharisees had already at this point plotted the death of Jesus in detail, and had Jesus’ crucifixion arranged.

There’s no doubt, however, that the Pharisees were unable to understand what Jesus was in these words proclaiming about Himself.  Twice in today’s Gospel Reading Jesus uses the divine name of “I AM”—thedivine Name that God revealed to Moses at the burning bush—to identify Himself.  But why does Jesus reveal His divine identity?  He does not do this for His own sake.

At the moment of the Annunciation, Jesus took on human nature.  He did this so that through His human nature, He could redeem fallen man.

Given this, we can understand better why the Church chose today’s First Reading as a parallel to the Gospel passage.  In that light, we ought to recall how Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel passage echoes what He had earlier proclaimed, recorded five chapters earlier in John 3:  “‘just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.’”

In these words, Jesus seems to identify Himself with a serpent in the desert.  If this seems an odd comparison, recall St. Paul’s words in the Second Reading on Ash Wednesday:  “For our sake [God the Father] made Him to be sin who did not know sin.”

God the Father making His divine Son to be sin, as incredible as it seems, was done for a divine purpose.  St. John the Evangelist explains this after Jesus makes a connection between His self-sacrifice on the Cross with Moses’ lifting up the serpent:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” [John 3:16].

Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Daniel 13:41-62  +  John 8:12-20

“Even though I walk in the dark valley I fear no evil; for you are at my side.”

The 23rd Psalm is undoubtedly the most famous of the 150 works found in the Psalter.  But those who comment upon this psalm don’t always give it its due.  Instead, reflections upon the 23rd Psalm often focus upon the first verse, and the beneficence of the Good Shepherd.

As this psalm is proclaimed during the first week of Passiontide, however, the refrain of today’s Responsorial gives us a different focus.  The refrain concentrates our focus upon the middle two of the four stanzas of the psalm (as it’s broken down for proclamation in the Roman Missal).  These verses foreshadow Christ’s Passion, and the care that the Good Shepherd affords to one in danger.

In turn, these verses of the 23rd Psalm also help us appreciate better the danger faced by Susanna in today’s First Reading, and the care shown by Daniel, who shepherds her to legal and moral safety (in fact, to help her avoid death).  In this, the First Reading’s narrative helps us appreciate that each of us is called to be not only a sheep who calls upon the Good Shepherd, but also a good shepherd to those whose safety needs our protection.

Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Jeremiah 11:18-20  +  John 7:40-53

Then each went to his own house.

This morning’s Gospel Reading is fairly unusual in that Jesus neither appears nor speaks.  The passages focuses upon the reactions of various persons to Jesus, or rather, to what He had just said.  In fact, the first sentence of today’s Gospel Reading begins, “Some in the crowd who heard these words of Jesus said….”  So to make sense of today’s passage, we need to recall yesterday’s.

In yesterday’s Gospel Reading, Jesus only spoke three sentences:  “You know me and also know where I am from.  Yet I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true.  I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.”  It’s these statements that give rise to the varied responses from the persons in today’s passage.  They argue with each other about Jesus’ origin, which in turn bears on His identity.

These persons’ confusion about where Jesus is from and who He is explains the final sentence of today’s Gospel Reading:  “Then each went to his own house.”  That might well seem an anodyne statement, but it’s symbolic of a more important truth:  that only Jesus can unite God’s people in the same “house”.  While the literal meaning of the word “house” in this final sentence is certainly an earthly dwelling place, its spiritual meaning is the House of God, which is another way of speaking about the Mystical Body of Christ.  Only by agreeing upon the true identity of Christ can God’s people find their true home in the Church.

Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Wisdom 2:1,12-22  +  John 7:1-2,10,25-30

So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand upon Him, because His Hour had not yet come.

Today’s Gospel Reading might not seem very dramatic.  There is more said about Jesus than there is said by Him.  A good part of the reading is the evangelist describing Jesus’ moving about and avoiding conflict.  Yet the final sentence of this passage heightens the setting of all that is said and done here.

In the Gospel Readings this past Tuesday and Wednesday, we heard two reasons for His enemies to threaten Him.  Today’s passage sees Jesus acting and speaking in the face of this danger.  Yet despite attempts to arrest Jesus, “no one laid a hand upon Him, because His Hour had not yet come.”

This “hour” is key to St. John’s account of the Gospel.  The evangelist isn’t referring to a chronological hour of sixty minutes.  He’s talking about the point within human history when God will destroy the power of sin and death.  Each of the signs that Jesus works during the “Book of Signs” foretells the events of Jesus’ Hour, and all of His teaching describes His reason for undertaking His Hour out of love.

The Fifth Sunday of Lent [C]
Isaiah 43:16-21  +  Philippians 3:8-14  +  John 8:1-11

For His sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish ….

Lent focuses our attention upon human sin, but always against the backdrop of divine mercy.  Never think about your sins without first reflecting on God’s merciful love for you.  Likewise, never think of God’s love for you without also recalling the depths to which Jesus sank to pour that love into your sinful heart.

It’s in light of this two-fold perspective—human sin and divine mercy—that we listen to Saint Paul today.  In today’s Second Reading, St. Paul preaches to the Philippians about several stark contrasts:  about loss and gain; suffering and power; death and resurrection.  For example, he explains to them:  “For His sake I have accepted the loss of all things, and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him”.

In our ordinary lives, we tend to think of morality only in terms of good and evil.  That is the foundational distinction:  to do the good and to reject the evil.  If we don’t accept in our minds this most basic moral distinction and shape our choices accordingly, we have little hope of reaching Heaven.

However, that most basic moral distinction between good and evil is a foundation, on top of which we as Christians are meant to build.  St. Paul gives us tools to build our moral lives towards Heaven:  or as he puts it, “to continue [our] pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.”

The challenge in rising to a higher level of moral growth is to be single-hearted in our pursuit of God.  To be single-hearted is—in the words of Jesus’ beatitudes—to be “pure of heart”.  Of course, some might assume that Jesus’ statement “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” [Mt 5:8] is referring to sexual purity.  In fact, Jesus is saying not only that, but much more as well.

When gold is tried in fire, impurities are burned away.  The gold becomes more pure, which is to say that it becomes more “gold-like”, which is to say that it becomes more itself.  It’s the same with an individual human person—such as yourself—when you purify your heart of foreign desires:  that is, desires foreign to the nature of the human heart.

In the language of the First of the Ten Commandments, when you purify your heart of “strange gods” (or “alien gods”), your heart becomes more pure.  Your heart becomes more “human-like”, which is to say that you become more who God created you to be.  It’s as simple as Saint Augustine’s famous confession to God:  “You stir man to take pleasure in praising You, because You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.”

Of course, we’re tempted in the modern world to dismiss the First Commandment as irrelevant.  After all, who among us actually worships “alien gods”?  We’re not like the ancient Greeks and Romans who worshipped Aphrodite and Jupiter, Mercury and Athena.  So how can you and I usefully hold up the First Commandment before our lives, to see if our hearts are single-hearted:  that is, pure in being focused on God alone?

Before even answering, some might reply that it’s impossible for a regular Christian—who is married and has children—to be focused on God alone.  There are too many other things to worry about in life!  A similar reply might be made by a parish priest, who can hardly spend all day in prayer given his administrative responsibilities.  However, those replies would miss the point.  The First Commandment does not command us to be cloistered monks and nuns.

The First Commandment guides our lives in commanding that the whole of human life be held up to the light of God’s love.  This includes everyone and every thing in our lives.  It’s because created things are good that God wants them in our lives.

Every thing and everyone is meant to mirror God’s love to us, not to serve as a mirror in which we gaze on our own self.  This contrast is the contrast that Saint Paul draws in our Second Reading, between “the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus” and considering “everything as a loss”.  Accepting this loss as St. Paul encourages is how we build on the foundation of the moral life, upwards towards the life of God Himself.

Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Exodus 32:7-14  +  John 5:31-47

“… these works that I perform testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.”

Jesus’ words today seem somewhat harsh, as they often seem in St. John’s Gospel account.  Jesus’ words to the Jews confirm that they are lacking in faith, unwilling to believe in the Good News that Jesus is preaching.  As we, the members of the Church, draw closer to Good Friday, we ought to ask whether we fully believe in the power of the Cross in our lives.  Do we believe that in suffering we can find redemption?  Do we believe that there is a meaning to all the suffering that we are constantly experience (often, of our own making)?

Jesus asserts that there is meaning in suffering, and that His Cross most perfectly reveals that meaning.  But to those with weak faith, Jesus’ words don’t suffice, so He offers four witnesses who testify to the Truth of who Jesus is.  John the Baptist, the miracles of Jesus, the Scripture, and God the Father each testify to what Jesus is saying, just as they will each testify to the sacrifice that Jesus will offer on Good Friday.  Saint John the Baptist, Jesus’ miracles, and the Scriptures all foretold the mystery that Jesus would in time reveal on the Cross, but it is God the Father Himself who will give ultimate meaning to the Cross.  The Father grants this meaning in raising Jesus from His suffering and death.

In saying all this in today’s Gospel passage, Jesus is preparing us to receive the Eucharist:  that is, to share in the Sacrifice of the Cross sacramentally.  He knew that many people would reject His teaching on the Eucharist, and that in doing so they would be rejecting Jesus Himself.  In the Cross we find our redemption, and in the Holy Eucharist we have the opportunity to willingly and lovingly participate in Christ’s self-offering to the Father.  We must have the confidence that the Father loves us—his adopted sons and daughters—as He does His only-begotten Son.  In our own lives, we must have confidence that our sacrifice will be acceptable to God the Father.