A Decision Day:
Palm Sunday 2025
April 13, 2025
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Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 22; Philippians 2:6-11; Luke 22:14-23:56
A fast-moving whirl of events are set in motion during today’s Scripture. The First Gospel sets up the ultimate clash between Jesus and the religious authorities. After preaching, healing, and creating a new community based on the law of God, Jesus sets his eyes on the prize – Jerusalem, the heavenly city of peace. During his ministry, the religious authorities sent Scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees to question and test Jesus to find the origins of his wisdom and power. Jesus taught a new way directed by God, and now he faced the Temple to force Israel to decide its fate: Would it accept God’s values and teachings as Jesus showed by example, or would it hold fast to long-standing custom and doctrine? This is the clash set up by Jesus as he enters the Temple. The crowds who travelled with him triumphantly waved palms in celebration, but perhaps not fully recognizing the prophetic action he was to undertake. Jesus was calling all Israel to make a fundamental choice – to choose God’s amended ways or to reject all that Jesus did.
We heard Luke’s version of the Last Supper, Betrayal and Passion, and ultimately the death of Jesus. The readings are told as if we do not know the end of the story. We are to fully grasp that Jesus died, and we are intended to grieve with the church. Jesus experiences the brutality and violence that the human heart, religious ideology, and power can do to a good person. When violence and power become friends, the human heart can become vicious and act without reasonableness. Even Pontius Pilate was perplexed at the voracity of hate. Pilate did not find Jesus guilty, but Jesus did not meet violence with more violence or revenge. He stayed faithful to the commandments and principles of God’s rule. Not only that, he realized what the human heart could do, and in the face of it, he continued to teach us that forgiveness is more powerful than hatred and violence.
Jesus stood upon what Scripture taught. Isaiah informed him “the Lord is his help
and will stand by him, even in times of shame, and Psalm 22 provides the cry of Jesus, “Why have you forsaken me?” All Israel, the elders, the chief priests, the scribes, and the people, stood against him. His disciples scatter as well. Jesus goes to his death without God answering him or comforting him. He hands over his spirit to God in trust that God hears him. God does not respond. Jesus trusts that God is still there for him. Jesus and his friends celebrated at the Passover Meal, the feast of God’s great abiding presence to the Israelites. Surely, God continues to abide by Jesus, but he dies without hearing those comforting words. Because Jesus remained obedient to God, even to death, he was able to connect us better to God. He showed us the way of non-violence and hatred. He showed us fidelity to God above all other forces in the world was the way to salvation. This is our decision day too. Are we going to reject or choose the way of Christ against the forces of the world? We have already chosen, and we must choose it anew each day. Now we have the great task of building a community of non-violence, empathy, and compassion.
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
April 13: Martin I, pope, (6th century – 655), an Umbrian was elected pope during the Byzantine papacy. One of his earliest acts was to convene the Lateran Council that dealt with the heretical Monothelitism. Martin was abducted by Emperor Constans II and died in the Crimean peninsula.
This Week in Jesuit History
- April 13, 1541. Ignatius was elected general in a second election, after having declined the results of the first election several days earlier.
- April 14, 1618. The father of John Berchmans is ordained a priest. John himself was still a Novice.
- April 15, 1610. The death of Fr. Robert Parsons, the most active and indefatigable of all the leaders of the English Catholics during the reign of Elizabeth I.
- April 16, 1767. Pope Clement XIII wrote to Charles III of Spain imploring him to cancel the decree of expulsion of the Society from Spain, issued on Aprilil 2nd. The Pope's letter nobly defends the innocence of the Society.
- April 17, 1540. The arrival in Lisbon of St Francis Xavier and Fr. Simon Rodriguez. Both were destined for India, but the King retained the latter in Portugal.
- April 18, 1906. At Rome, the death of Rev Fr. Luis Martin, twenty-fourth General of the Society. Pope Pius X spoke of him as a saint, a martyr, a man of extraordinary ability and prudence.
April 19, 1602. At Tyburn, Ven. James Ducket, a layman, suffered death for publishing a work written by Robert Southwell.
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