Prelude to Triumph and Glory

Image via Wikipedia

This Sunday which commemorates the Passion of our Lord is a prelude to the three holiest days of the year during which we celebrate the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. As a prelude is meant to introduce us to what is to follow, it offers us an overview of what we are about to experience. Hence our liturgy today must lead us into the celebration of Holy Week with renewed faith in and gratitude to God for his salvation for all mankind.

As palms are blessed and the Gospel story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem is proclaimed, Jesus is likened to a saviour-king figure and greeted with blessings and praise. As we listen to the enthusiastic welcome of Jesus of the people, we can’t help feeling the sense of eager anticipation of great things to come. At the same time, there is a sense of foreboding as we behold the envy of the enemies of Jesus who see in the tumultuous welcome of Jesus by the people of a signal for them to act quickly against Jesus. They are not caught up with the popular enthusiasm for they fume with jealousy and milk their beards as they bid Jesus to silence the vociferous multitudes. The readings and the psalm fit well into this pattern of the prelude. They each move from joy to sadness, from well-being to suffering, from glory to ignominy. They both highlight the saviour image of Jesus. In Isaiah’s Third Servant Song (First Reading), the servant who has been proclaimed in the earlier songs as beloved, gifted with the Spirit of God, consecrated, a light to the nations and a gentle minister of the Lord’s justice, is now shown the truly faithful servant.

This Servant has always been seen as a model for all disciples and for the people of Israel itself. They knew from their history that prophets were not listened to. They were ridiculed, rejected and even killed. This reality is manifestly acknowledged in the Third Servant Song. On Good Friday, as we walk the Way of the Cross and venerate the Cross, we will listen to, be touched by, and appreciate with profound gratitude to the Servant’s complete self-giving, bearing our sins for us and loving us to the point of being a “man of sorrows”, dying on the Cross.
This theme is then taken up in the anguish and pathos of the Responsorial Psalm 22, opening with the heart-rending, desperate prayer-cry of Jesus, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” This is Jesus’ prayer of complete abandonment to his Father – a prayer of utter self-giving to the Father – a fitting prelude to the Father’s glory.

Then in the Letter of Paul to the Philippians, we are also led through the abandonment to God accepting his Son’s sacrifice, receiving him with love and loving him into new, risen, glorious life. To prepare for the Holy Week by focusing solely on the suffering Jesus is not to prepare fully. The suffering is no end in itself. It is Jesus’ gift, received by the Father who transforms it into new life for all of us.

The Gospel reading dramatizes the roles of many of Jesus’ disciples: the warning to Peter about his impending unfaithfulness and his subsequent denial of Jesus, the sleeping disciples in Gethsemane, Judas' kiss of betrayal, the grieving women of Jerusalem, the conscripted Simon of Cyrene, the repentant thief, and Joseph of Arimathea who buried Jesus. And there is Jesus himself, God-made-man, the Master, the Servant, the Lord, sweating and betrayed, humiliated, scorned, bearing the weight of our sinfulness on his back and crucified.

But this is the Father’s plan of love. It’s the Father’s prelude to his Son’s glory.

This passage is taken from the bulletin of The Church Of St Francis Xavier.

Happy Easter !

Image via Wikipedia

I read in one of the forum recently that someone claimed that celebrating Easter is "against God" and only Passover should be celebrated. How ridiculous!

HOLY WEEK COMMEMORATES the last week of Jesus’ earthly life. The Church helps the faithful to focus on Jesus by highlighting the significant events that preceded Jesus’ death on the cross. These are done with special liturgies on Palm Sunday (when Jesus enter Jerusalem), Holy Thursday (the last supper and washing of feets) and Good Friday (when Jesus was cruxified).

How can these be "against God"?

Easter mark the start of a new liturgical season. Though not part of the Holy week, it is the first day of a new liturgical season. The first celebration of Easter takes place at Easter Vigil, celebrated on the Saturday evening before Easter Sunday.

And on Easter, we celebrate the risen Christ, the resurrection of our Lord. As St Paul said: "If Christ had not risen, our faith is a delusion, is empty! Our life does not make sense! Christ redeemed us by His death and resurrection. We believe in Jesus who was handed over to death for our sins and raised up for our justification." (Rom 4:25)

As Archbishop Nicholas Chia said in his Easter 2009 message:

"Through Christ's death and resurrection our sins are taken away and new divine life has been given to us.

And so, dear friends, as we live the Easter mystery, we have the light of the Risen Lord in us ONLY when we recognise, respect and love each other as brother and sister in Christ. "Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the dark" (1Jn 2:8-9)

Christ is risen and He wants to light up our lives. Let us hare this joyful message with our fellowmen."