Biblical reflections

Contemplating the events of Holy Week: who and where am I?

Fr. Eugenio Pulcini, SX

Listening to the Spirit

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful
and kindle in them the fire of your love.

Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created,
and you shall renew the face of the earth.

Let us pray.

Almighty, ever-living God, who as an example of humility for the human race to follow caused our Savior to take flesh and submit to the Cross, graciously grant that we may heed his lesson of patient suffering and so merit a share in his Resurrection. Amen.

Listening to the Word

Mk 11:1–10

When Jesus and his disciples drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately on entering it, you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone should say to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ reply, ‘The Master has need of it and will send it back here at once.’” So they went off and found a colt tethered at a gate outside on the street, and they untied it. Some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” They answered them just as Jesus had told them to, and they permitted them to do it. So they brought the colt to Jesus and put their cloaks over it. And he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. Those preceding him as well as those following kept crying out: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come! Hosanna in the highest!”

Reflection

Palm Sunday: a stage of great importance and profound impact for the Lenten journey towards the Easter of the Lord Jesus Christ. The liturgy that the Church celebrates is extraordinarily rich in people, symbols, atmospheres and strong contrasts. It is a true dramatic symphony that, beginning with Jesus' festive entry into Jerusalem, culminates with the account of his passion until his death on the cross. There the "secret" of his identity is finally revealed, paradoxically recognized by a gentile, a pagan, a Roman soldier: Truly this man was the Son of God (Mk 15.38).

The disciples' journey, our journey, also experiences a decisive moment in Jerusalem. Holy Week offers a precious opportunity to reflect on our courage to be both human and Christian; a courage that we can only cultivate by acknowledging Jesus' way of living and dying. If we are willing to surrender to Jesus what remains within us that is alien to the spirit of Easter, then we can set out along the way of the cross. In the dramatic events of the coming days, I feel compelled to find (choose) again "my place", whether near or far from Jesus, with or against him, as a friend or an enemy of the cross.

«Go to the village in front of you and immediately, upon entering it, you will find a colt tied, … Untie him and bring him here" (Mk 11:2). Before entering the holy city, Jesus made this singular request to his disciples. It serves as the introductory note for each of us to pass through the doors that usher in the Easter celebration. What the Lord always needs, in order to facilitate the miracle of our conversion and thus give us salvation, is nothing more than willingness to offer our poverty to enable the Almighty to let the true light, that of love and service, shine in the world. We stand alongside Jesus as he enters Jerusalem and is hailed as King by everyone, but let us also remain by his side on the way to the cross. In doing so, we will remain with him even at the moment of the Resurrection.

The crowds (Mk 8:8-10). The great failing of the people was not that they were evil or bloodthirsty, but that they were complacent; equally ready to shout 'Hosanna' or 'crucify him'... This is the ugliest and cruelest image of all. The crowds. Those who have done nothing, who have merely stood on the sidelines of Holy Week, ready to stay and browse if something interesting happens - just as if it were a TikTok moment - but just as ready to give a damn about the neighbor in need. How much indifference persists even today in the face of the suffering of the innocent!

“Then they all abandoned him and fled” (Mk 14.50). He who emptied himself by becoming a man (Phil. 2:11-16), placing himself at the service of the men and women he met, reviving the disheartened, lifting the fallen, is left alone. Peter, James and John fall asleep during Jesus' agonizing struggle with the Father’s will in the heartfelt prayer at Gethsemane. Judas hands him over to his tormentors. Peter denies him after declaring himself ready to even die for him and, at the moment of capture, Jesus remains alone. To the three disciples he took with him to Gethsemane, Jesus reminds them that only through prayer can they avoid "entering into temptation" (Mk 14:38). Yes, in the hearts of the disciples lies our own fear that following Jesus is too demanding and that losing one's life is inhumane.

"Then they all abandoned him and fled" (Mk 14.50). We too flee before the Master's Passover and before the Passovers that punctuate our existence. Faced with trials, we forget the Father’s will and run away like the disciples did. But for us, too, the hour of passion arrives, when the risks are many and substantial, when we can no longer postpone crucial decisions—decisions that only we can make. Instead of continually asking the Father to save us from reality, because it is terribly different and more painful than we had expected, let us make our life a gift of love, following the example of Jesus who «... Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him» (Heb 5:8). The modality of Jesus' gift of life invites us not to evade our personal and missionary Passovers but to embrace them with complete abandonment, knowing that through them lies the path to overcoming our selfishness and loneliness, thus flourishing in the fertile soil of communion with God and with others.

«(The women...) stood watching where he was placed» (Mk 15,47). Even if we find ourselves incapable of fully embracing the poverty of Christ, we can always hold onto the hope of resuming our journey behind him, unaware like the Cyrenean, courageous like Joseph of Arimathea, sincere like the centurion. But above all, steadfast, like those women who don't flee from anyone and demand nothing. They simply stay.

Hoping for everybody a holy and fruitful Mahal na Araw! God bless.