OMELIE / Omelie EN

28 mar 2021

28/03/2021 – Palm Sunday - year B - MK 11,1-10

28/03/2021 – Palm Sunday - year B - MK 11,1-10

Reading 1 IS 50,4-7 Psalm 21/22 Reading 2 PHIL 2,6-11 Gospel MK 14,1 - 15,47

Today we exalt Jesus while He enters the Holy City, Jerusalem, the city of the king of Israel, and we accompany Him on the path which takes Him outside it, on the Calvary, where He opens for us the door of the kingdom of heaven. With the olive tree branches in our hand we take part in the joy of those who want Him to rule over us, and we offer Him our steps so in us too the Father’s will may be fulfilled, the will which is always perfect love.

We will despair too and we will weep with Peter, because our weakness of faith and love continues to manifest itself in our days, putting obstacles in front of our brethren's faith and preventing the Lord from shining His light on our face. We should let shine through the beauty of the face of the Son of God, and instead our faces are showing the ugliness of the sin and of self-indulgent selfishness.

In Jesus’ silence, beaten and crowned with thorns, we will hear the words of the prophet Isaiah like he himself was talking: “I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. The Lord God is my help…”. We can see Him while He overcomes the most terrible temptation of His life, He overcomes it by continuing to offer Himself to God, the God of love, the God who loves all men. Jesus keeps calling Him Father, keeps blessing Him, without rebelling, without complaining, without refusing to follow step after step the path which is humiliating Him, is stripping Him not only of the glory of divinity, but also of the dignity of a man. His path lowers Him to the level of a servant, and then “to the point of death, even death on a cross”.

We look at Him and we try at least to offer to take a small step with Him. There will be plenty of opportunities. We find some in our house, with our parents, with whom is not easy for us to deal without complaining and wining. We can find some at our workplace or when we travel, and where we spend our free time: in words and through my behaviour, will I be able not to betray Jesus? Will I have the strength to give him testimony? Saint Paul is anticipating that the same Jesus, once arrived at the cross, “God greatly exalted him” in a way that at His name “every knee should bend” “and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”.

We will also take part in His exaltation if we will have suffered for Him, because of Him, because we have said that we loved Him, and that about Him we do not just love an idea, but truly Him, His body. We love that Body of His which keeps living and suffering and dying in the world: we love the Church. If we do not love this body of His, which in the most trying hour was almost completely inexistent, we cannot say we love Jesus either. But, if we love Him, for us too is ready the exaltation on the Father’s part!

Before suffering and being exalted, Jesus wanted to “eat the Passover” with His disciples. And the same bread He is offering us today too. And His same “blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many” is still offered to His Church. We feed at this table, or we prepare to welcome this gift during the Easter Triduum: we will ask the Church for forgiveness of our sins, and we will ask for the medicine against going on living in indifference or in lukewarmness of faith and charity.

We start the Holy Week with the desire and the will to continue then with a pure heart our journey with Jesus in His Church, which is the clear sign, so the sacrament, that He has risen from the dead!