PALM SUNDAY OF THE LORD’S PASSION
13 APRIL 2025
In 1931,
Gertrud von Le Fort wrote a novel, entitled The
Song at the Scaffold. It was about
the true story of a Carmelite community of nuns in France, who were executed in
the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. During a moving scene, the nuns are observing
the “blasphemous mockeries of Eucharistic processions.” One of the sisters refers to the Eucharist as
“the defenseless God.” Her remarks
describe how dependent God in the Eucharist is on human respect and faith. God in the Eucharist is wholly vulnerable to
human choice and action, whether that action is faith-filled and reverent or
blasphemous and denigrating.
Ours is a
God who does not shield himself from buffets and spitting. To use the words of Saint Paul, Jesus does
not grasp at divinity as an escape from (or punishment for) human weakness.
This Passion according to Saint Luke sets the stage for our reflection on the
final chapter in the continuing story of God’s choice to be vulnerable to human
sin.
Lent ends
this Thursday evening when we enter into the Sacred Paschal Triduum and
celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper at 6:00. We are invited to stay with the Lord through
the Passover Meal and the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. We will witness the denial in the courtyard
of the high priest, along with the solitude of the night in custody and the
mockery of the council of elders. On
Good Friday at the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion at 1:00, we will visit the
shuffle between Pilate and Herod, along with the brutality of scourging and the
carrying of the cross. On Calvary, we
will hear the reproach of friend and foe alike, the last breath, and the
placement of the dead body into his mother’s arms.
We will
begin with the darkness of that death at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday
evening at 9:00. But throughout that
incredibly beautiful Liturgy, we will renew our faith that the horrors of this
reality will be replaced by Easter joy and redemption. It is critical that we gather together for
these liturgies, identifying with our defenseless God who has destroyed the
power of death by entering into it himself.
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