Dear friends,
Today we start the Holy Week. With the celebration of the two events, namely the Solemn entrance of Jesus in Jerusalem and the Passion (Suffering and Death), we proclaim the kingship of Jesus and the unmeasurable love of God who sacrificed his Son for our sake.
The entrance gospel challenges our understanding of discipleship. The Ox owner gave up his only valuable thing. What he relied on and what made hold a social rank in the community. The most surprising here is that he doesn’t question about the identity of the one who asks for it. He just hears the answer from the disciples: “The Master needs it.” Who is that Master? We would expect. But his silence expresses an attitude that is required for and expected from a disciple: to surrender. To let God be God and just align in his project and program for us.
To surrender is exactly what we see in the celebration of the Passion today. The Son surrenders to the Father’s will, because what the father wills the Son does it. But why would the Son of God who never sinned accept to undergo such suffering and death? It is only for you and me. We are the reason. It is for our salvation. To realize it, the Son abandoned himself to the Father. He traces the path for us to follow in our distress and pains.
Like the Son through whom we are God’s children by adoption, we are invited to lift up our eyes and hearts to the father every minute of our life, especially in times of suffering and pain. Once we abandon ourselves to the Crucified King, He will transform our mourning to laughter and our pain to joy. Amidst our sorrow, there always is the spot of hope that is rendered by the prayer Jesus addressed to the Father. He says: “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” This follows his request to the Father to let the cup pass for him. This humble and trustful request is the one we are meant to carry out in times of need and trials. For we know that behind every trial lies a victory which no one can take from us; because the victory is Christ’s and we will share in it if we surrender to his will and abandon ourselves to his care.
Have you thought about letting it go whenever the Master asked for it? When you meditate upon your own life, you will find out the so many things you hold on to while Christ is asking you to give them to him. Maybe your pain is so excoriating that you have given up hope. Today, the Lord says, I need your pain. Give it to me. Maybe anger has loaded your heart from a hurtful experience, and it keeps you hostage. The Master says, I need it so you heart can find solace in and with me. Maybe your honor or reputation has been deeply damaged by a friend or a relative that it has become so difficult for you to move on. The Master says, I need everything so I can transform it to a source of consolation. He stretches out his hands from the Cross to embrace you and to console you. Are you ready to abandon yourself into his loving and all-embracing hands to change your life? Today is the day Christ invites you to bring everything that keeps you away from Him to the feet of his cross.
As we contemplate our Suffering Lord on the Cross carrying out our sins and iniquities, let us abandon ourselves to Him, relying on His endless mercy. And let continue to pray for one another and for our parish family.
Fr. Emery