On Sunday we celebrated the beginning of Holy Week with Palm Sunday. Our gospel reflection today is by Br Tony Clark FMS published by the Catholic Diocese of Sale.

Palm Sunday is one day in our liturgical year to which I look forward. It’s the entry point of the holiest of weeks in our liturgical year as Christian Catholics. First, the blessing of palms and the swaying palm branches carried in procession evokes for me our movement as the People of God, joyfully welcoming Jesus, our Messiah, among us. ‘Hosanna to the King of David!” There is usually the excitement and playfulness of children as they move in and out of people as we move into the church. There is the rich splash of colours with the green branches contrasting with red vestments of the priest. Red being the colour that usually symbolizes the shedding of blood and self-offering. Then we finally gather to listen to God’s Word. How can we not be moved as we are drawn into the high drama of Christ’s last days, his suffering and death as an innocent victim of power and the mob mentality.

This year’s Passion account comes from the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew’s presents Jesus meeting His death to fulfil His God-given destiny foreshadowed in the Scriptures and inaugurates a new age of history charged with resurrection life. Jesus is the obedient Son of God, tenaciously faithful even in the midst of abject suffering. Jesus’ trust in God, tested in the savage fury of death itself, is not in vain. Matthew portrays Jesus’ passion as an encounter with destiny, not a destiny of blind fate but one made inevitable by the strong commitments of Jesus’ mission from God and the fierce resistance of the power of death.

The climax of Matthew’s passion narrative is filled with drama. His cross carried by Simon the Cyrenian, Jesus is led to Golgotha for crucifixion. The executioners fix a placard to the cross: “This is Jesus: the King of the Jews”. They obviously intend the words to ridicule this messianic pretender as he is defeated in death. Similarly, a stream of passers-by mock Jesus’ claims to authority over the temple and taunt him by reminding him that he could apparently save others but not save himself. Even the two rebels crucified with him join in the chorus of revulsion.

In describing this terrible moment, Matthew once again reaches back to the Hebrew scriptures for his inspiration. As in Mark’s gospel, Jesus’ final prayer will be taken from Psalm 22, the great prayer of lament. In that powerful text, a faithful Jew prays in the midst of abject suffering and isolation. He is surrounded by people who ridicule his trust in God. Feeling abandoned even by God, the psalmist utters a prayer of raw faith: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” It is that honest, unadorned prayer that Matthew places on the lips of Jesus as the sky darkens, God’s faithful son encountering death.