Palm Sunday - Fr. Leo
Living the paschal mystery is a greater part of human experience today than has ever been in my life time. As a universal community, we are witnessing unprecedented deaths and a change in living habits that go against our social nature. Death is certainly a part of all of our lives in many different ways.
I pray that most of us will embrace the solitude that is now ours. And in this quiet of the desert, let the things die in our lives that need to die. Our isolation can be a time of reflecting on who we are with others, God and ourselves. We can let go of the false self that does nothing but drain us. Then we can also come to appreciate all the blessings that are ours in the world and people around us. All things that hint at the God who at this very moment is directing us and offering us the gift of a deeper oneness with and in him.
Reading the Passion is maybe more painful to read this year because we can hear it better with our hearts undistracted by the “normal” busyness of life. The text, read prayerfully, can open our eyes to God’s love revealed in Christ through the death he endured as a gift for our freedom. The scripture can offer a way of looking at life and our experience of it and finding what about it really matters. Is it the ego trip of Judas? Is it the “truth” of a culture that can’t foster life? Is it the reputation that must be protected like Herod, or the loving mother who stood at the foot of her Son’s agony and death?
The Passion of Christ is our story. The more we can enter in to this desert time, the more it will bring us to share more fully into the fullness of God’s life now, and in the life to come. May the spirit be with us to open our minds and hearts in this time of quiet that we may commune with the God in who’s image we have been created!
The story of the passion is the story of God’s love for you. It exemplifies and makes real the unconditional love of God. He died and has forgiven our sin and welcomes us in every still and quiet moment to live life as his gift without strings attached. How awesome! So let us be grateful and give thanks as His love rises in us and spills over into all creation as it returns to Him who never ceases to send us His love. Praise God and let his blessings flow! Amen.