Daily Retreat 04/09/06

2006 Apr 9 SUN: PALM SUNDAY OF THE LORD'S PASSION

Procession: Mk 11: 1-10 or Jn 12: 12-16.

Mass: Is 50: 4-7/ Ps 21(22): 8-9. 17-18. 19-20. 23-24/ Phil 2: 6-11/ Mk 14: 1 – 15: 47

From today’s readings: "The Lord GOD is My help, therefore I am not disgraced; I have set My face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.....My God, my God, why have you abandoned Me?... Christ Jesus, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.... When the centurion who stood facing Him saw how He breathed his last he said,’Truly this man was the Son of God!’ "

Passion Sunday

All of the Gospels have a disproportionate detailing of Holy Week, because, in fact, each one of the evangelists wrote his Gospel precisely so that we could see the love and life of the Lord that is manifested most in those moments of His Passion, Death, and Resurrection. What precedes the Passion accounts is simply what Matthew, Mark, Luke and John thought was necessary so that we could understand the eternal ramifications of the Passion of Christ.

Even though Jesus was 33 when He died, and He had had 3 years of public ministry, look at how much of the Gospels are dedicated to His last week! Think, for instance, of the Gospel of St. John: the Last Supper begins in Chapter 13, and the words of Christ in the Last Supper go through Chapters 14, 15, and 16. Chapter 17 is the priestly prayer of Christ, how right before the agony in the garden, He turns to God the Father and offers Himself, and His words explain His whole priestly mission, and then Chapter 18 and Chapter 19 are the events of the Passion itself, beginning in the Garden of Gethsemani, continuing through the trials and the Way of the Cross leading up to His crucifixion, and then the last two chapters (20 and 21) are about the Resurrection.

So over a third of the Gospel of St John is just concerned with one week in the life of Christ! To be accurate, the resurrection appearances take place over a number of weeks, but in essence, over a third of the Gospel of St John is dedicated to the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Our Lord. The other Gospels have a similar ratio - not quite as high, though, simply because they don’t record as many words with Christ at the Last Supper. So take the time to read thoroughly the Passion of Christ! Today, Mark’s account is proclaimed; on Good Friday, the Passion will be from the Gospel of St. John. And whenever you read the Gospels, remember that they focus on the Passion, and everything that comes before that is just meant to help and understand the love of the life of Christ that is revealed in that definitive moment of His life on earth!