Reflection from Fr. John for Palm Sunday on Gospel of Mt. 26:14-27:66

This Palm Sunday is like no other Palm Sunday we’ve experienced:

• No Palms
• No Processions
• No Hosannas

But there is a Passion this Sunday which is the other name for this Feast.

• It’s Mathew’s Passion of Jesus’ suffering and death.
• It’s the story of suffering and death of so many in N.Y.
• It’s the passion of ER doctors and nurses overworked and overwhelmed in hospitals
• It’s the passion that people who are out of work are going thru, wondering where the next paycheck will come from

We may not be able to hear any Hosannas this Sunday, but the prayer contained in that word which means “Save us” is in our hearts if not our lips. Hosanna is a strong plea to God, a hopeful plea that God helps us thru this crisis.

The writer F. Ngunjini says that “Help” is a one-word prayer when words fail us. Jesus’ prayer in the place called Gethsemane, “Father, if possible, let this cup pass from me,” was a prayer for Help. During this Pandemic, our prayer is let this cup pass from us. We cry out “Hosanna”—save us. Our prayer is “Help.” Help all those who are experiencing the agony of isolation, the agony of how to pay the bills, the agony of struggling to breath.

This Passion Sunday is also a time for com-passion toward ourselves and our neighbors. For compassion is the medicine that we need to transform our fear into hope. It’s the medicine that can transform our anger so we do not transmit that virus to others.

• When Jesus entered Jerusalem people asked, “Who is this?” Like the poet Michael Gehrling we ask on this day, “What Kind of King are you?”
• What kind of king sits at table and breaks bread with those who will betray him?
• What kind of king comes to serve rather than be served—who gives his life for the many?
• What kind of king are you?
• You are a king who calls us to serve and lay down our lives for others.
• You are the kind of king that moves doctors and nurses in ERs to serve in this time of crisis, aware that they are putting themselves and their families at risk.

Help, we pray, to give us the courage on this day to follow you all the way to Golgotha. Like the disciples, wake me from the sleep that keeps me from being aware of how interconnected we all are during this Global Pandemic.

An Italian poet tells the story of receiving a phone call from a 76-year-old woman who is isolated by the “Stay at Home Order.” She told him what she longs for most is a kiss. Jesus did not long for the kiss he received—by the one who betrayed him whose heart was infected by Satan.

What kind of King is this we ask? We have a king who allowed himself to be touched by lepers and sinners and those closest to him who betrayed him—both Peter and Judas. We have a king who does not now keep his distance from us at a time when we must keep our distance from others.

It was for this Hour that Jesus came. Many will die before their time because of this virus just as many die before their time each day due to famine and war. But this was the Hour for which Jesus came because he is a king who allowed Himself to be kissed, to be touched who does not keep His distance from us in this Hour.

Palm Sunday reveals to us, as Phillip Yancey says, a God who is on the side and at the side of those who suffer. It tells us to look to the cross in our suffering. It says, listen to the cry of Jesus who gives voice to our cry of “My God, my God why have you abandoned me?”

Both the economy and this virus can make us feel sick. And so it hardly feels like a Holy Week this year. But we journey this week toward Holy Thurs. remembering how Jesus took bread, blessed it and gave it to his disciples at a time when we cannot gather in church for the Eucharist.

We follow the Way of the Cross on Good Friday, the day of His betrayal and crucifixion. And then like Mary Magdalene and the other women at the tomb we wait on Holy Sat for the new life of Easter when this Pandemic is over. The poet Maya Angelou wrote in her poem “Still I Rise”:

• Did you want to see me broken?
• Bowed head, lowered eyes?
• Shoulders fallen…
• Weakened by my sorrowful cries…
• You may kill me with your hatefulness
• But still…I’ll Rise.”

Jesus is still being crucified today in all who suffer. His body and the body of so many is being broken by this virus. Soulful cries can be heard by the lonely and those who have lost loved ones.

But on this Palm Sunday we are not broken. Because we know Easter is coming and because of who this King is-- we’ll rise.