God’s Silence? Palm Sunday 202

                                                           God’s Silence?

Palm Sunday 2021

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Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 22; Philippians 2;6-11; Mark 14:1-15:47

 

 

Serenity seems to set into Scripture as Jesus begins his preparations for the Passover meal with his friends. Everything has been arranged and falls into place easily as if it had been preordained. The Passover meal is the celebration of God’s fidelity to the Israelites, and God seems very present in these early events.

 

As the story unfolds, it begins to go wrong. After celebrating the festive meal, Jesus is betrayed and denied by his closest friends, and the rest of his disciples desert him. They fall asleep in the Garden during his time of need, and God seems more remote to Jesus in prayer. Mark’s Gospel is chilling because everyone abandons Jesus, and, God, the one he relied upon most, seems silent. In fact, in Mark’s account, Jesus goes to his death without knowing that God heard him. He dies quickly, but he dies alone, and God never answered him. 

 

God’s silence at the crucifixion scene is quite loud. It makes us wonder where God is in the face of human suffering. How many times has God been silent to us in our pain and hurt? If this is the moment when God is steadfast and always stands by the faithful loved ones, then it doesn’t seem like God’s best moment. On the other hand, this is the moment of God’s vulnerability. In Jesus, God saves us by becoming so vulnerable that we are able to kill him in the most vile and humiliating way. 

 

At the cross, we turned away from friendship with God and we lost our way, and God remained silent as we chose our actions. God became vulnerable, and our best response to this vulnerability is to become compassionate and understanding. To be compassionate means to feel so completely for others who are in trouble or in pain that we put our very selves at risk. God’s compassion for the world leads God to risk taking on human flesh and getting killed for doing so. In retrospect, God certainly was not silent. God was not absent. God was certainly more present than we could comprehend.

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

 

Monday of Holy Week: We hear from Isaiah 42 in the First Oracle of the Servant of the Lord in which God’s servant will suffer silently but will bring justice to the world. In the Gospel, Lazarus’ sister, Mary, anoints Jesus’ feet with costly oil in preparation for his funeral.

Tuesday of Holy Week: In the Second Oracle of the Servant of the Lord (Isaiah 49), he cries out that I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach the ends of the earth. In deep hurt, distress and grief, Jesus tells his closest friends at supper that one of them will betray him and another will deny him three times before the cock crows.

(Spy) Wednesday of Holy Week: In the Third Oracle of the Servant of the Lord (Isaiah 50), the suffering servant does not turn away from the ridicule and torture of his persecutors and tormentors. The time has come. Matthew’s account shows Judas eating during the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread with Jesus and their good friends after he had already arranged to hand him over to the chief priests for thirty pieces of silver. The Son of Man will be handed over by Judas, one of the Twelve, who sets the terms of Jesus’ arrest.

Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday: Only an evening Mass can be said today and we let our bells ring freely during the Gloria that has been absent all Lent. In Exodus, we hear the laws and customs about eating the Passover meal prior to God’s deliverance of the people through Moses from the Egyptians. Paul tells us of the custom by early Christians that as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. In John’s Gospel, Jesus loves us to the end giving us a mandate to wash one another’s feet.

Good Friday: No Mass is celebrated today though there may be a service of veneration of the cross and a Stations of the Cross service. In Isaiah, we hear the Fourth Oracle of the Servant of the Lord who was wounded for our sins. In Hebrews, we are told that Jesus learned obedience through his faith and thus became the source of salvation for all. The Passion of our Lord is proclaimed from John’s Gospel.

Holy Saturday and the Easter Vigil: No Mass, baptisms, or confirmations can be celebrated before the Vigil to honor the Lord who has been buried in the tomb. The Old Testament readings point to God’s vision of the world and the deliverance of the people from sin and death. All of Scripture points to the coming of the Righteous One who will bring about salvation for all. The Old Testament is relished during the Vigil of the Word as God’s story of salvation is told to us again. The New Testament epistle from Romans tells us that Christ, who was raised from the dead, dies no more. Matthew's Gospel finds Mary Magdalene and the other Mary at dawn arriving at the tomb only to find it empty. After a great earthquake that made the guards tremble, and angel appears telling the women, "Do not be afraid." The angel instructs them to go to the Twelve to tell them, "Jesus has been raised from the dead, and is going before you to Galilee." 

 

Saints of the Week

 

No saints are remembered on the calendar during this solemn week of our Lord's Passion.

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• March 28, 1606: At the Guildhall, London, the trial of Fr. Henry Garnet, falsely accused of complicity in the Gunpowder Plot. 
• March 29, 1523: Ignatius' first visit to Rome on his way from Manresa to Palestine. 
• March 30, 1545: At Meliapore, Francis Xavier came on pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Thomas the Apostle. 
• March 31, 1548: Fr. Anthony Corduba, rector of the College of Salamanca, begged Ignatius to admit him into the Society so as to escape the cardinalate which Charles V intended to procure for him. 
• Apr 1, 1941. The death of Hippolyte Delehaye in Brussels. He was an eminent hagiographer and in charge of the Bollandists from 1912 to 1941. 
• Apr 2, 1767. Charles III ordered the arrest of all the Jesuits in Spain and the confiscation of all their property. 
• Apr 3, 1583. The death of Jeronimo Nadal, one of the original companions of Ignatius who later entrusted him with publishing and distributing the Jesuit Constitutions to the various regions of the early Society.