Palm Sunday: A Journey of Faith

04-10-2022Weekly ReflectionFr. Bing Colasito

Palm Sunday signals the beginning of the Holy Week, the heart of the Church’s liturgical year. All our prayers, fasting, and acts of charity throughout Lent lead to this week. It is a week filled with high emotion and drama, the PASSION of the Son of Man who suffers and dies a cruel death, and three days after rises to give us new life. The Passion narrative tells us how much God loves us and how hopeful our situation is. Now, God invites us to a journey of faith, a way of life, or a new level of existence.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI describes it as follows: Being Christian is a path or, better, a pilgrimage; it is to travel with Jesus, to journey in the direction He has pointed out and is pointing out to us. May this Holy Week be an opportunity for all of us to journey with Him, know Him better, and love Him more.

The way God invites us to travel this Holy Week is following Jesus’ way of the cross. The WAY of surrendering to the will of God, to suffering, to dying, to rising, to giving one’s life out of love, and bringing life to others. It is a way of being one with God. He creates us from the beginning, and He wills us to be in communion with Him eternally. The WAY that this comes about is receiving the likeness of God as a GIFT of LOVE from Him. The second reading gives us a perfect model; when Jesus Himself walks the way: Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped. He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:6-8).

I invite everyone this Holy Week to a journey of faith with Jesus, to walk with Jesus, and get to know Him better! To be with Him at the institution of two sacraments, of Priesthood and the Eucharist at the last supper. To be with Him at the garden of Gethsemane, spend the night with Him as He embraces the cup of suffering. To be with Him as He carries His cross up to Mt. Calvary, to feel His pain and agony on the cross. And to hear His voice as He utters: Consummatum est, it is finished, as He breathes His last. For all these to become a reality this Holy Week, we must slow down, be still, be silent, and listen. I pray that you find a quiet moment of prayer with the Lord this Holy Week.

Last March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation, we all witnessed the HISTORIC moment when Pope Francis consecrated Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The consecration is timely for all peace-loving people around the world, the Christian world who prayed with one single intention in their hearts, one agendum, a heightened awareness that more than ever, we need to pray for peace in Ukraine and the whole world. Let us set aside our program this Holy Week and enter the Solemn Triduum, heightening the program of God in our lives. I propose this Holy Week that we make a sacrifice of switching off our temporal and personal programs and switch on to God. Be participants in the story of love that unfolds before us this Holy Week.

Be pilgrims; and not tourists. Let God speak to us and not us talking to Him through our set of devotions and prayers. If some things do not happen as scheduled, Lord, may I remember that I
am a pilgrim, not a tourist!

Lord, let our earthly journey not be about going fast and far, but the way to your heart. Amen.

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