Palm Sunday is the beginning of the Holy Week, a week set apart for us to be touched by the passion of the Lord Jesus and by the suffering of the world.
With most of the countries of the world under the threat of the coronavirus, we are forced to face our fragility and mortality. Humanity is going through rough seas and we are all in the same boat and facing the same danger. Before this pandemic, we have to humble ourselves. Indeed, there is nothing to boast about. This pandemic is a call for all of us to become aware of the perilous path we go through. We have forgotten that, leading a life full of selfishness and total disregard for the well-being of the others and of the earth, which sustain us.
In many parts of the world, there will not be a public celebration of Palm Sunday, Holy Week and Easter. It is as if all of us are in the tomb, like Jesus in the Saturday that followed his death. We are not going to walk on the streets, but at home, with the family, we are going to celebrate knowing that we are in communion with thousands of thousands of families, forming a big community, the living Church, which is the body of Christ.
FIRST READING - Isaiah 50, 4-7 - The Messiah presents himself as a faithful disciple, who listens to the word of God and takes it “to those who are “wearied”, giving them encouragement and comfort. Because of his faithfulness, the Messiah will suffer rejection, but he “made no resistance”, nor did he “turn away”: “I did not cover my face against insult and spittle.” He put his trust in God, knowing that he will not be disappointed.
SECOND READING - Philippians 2, 6-11 - In the letter to the Philippians, Paul gives us a poem about the mystery of Christ's passion and death. Being of divine condition, he became a servant, similar to us. He did not use his divine condition to impose himself and show himself to be superior to men. On the contrary, he lowered himself and became a human being like all of us, weak and fragile, experiencing suffering and death. He showed his fidelity and his obedience until his death on the Cross. And that is why God exalted him. He “emptied himself” in order to share our human condition enslaved by sin, and God glorified and exalted him. For this reason, his name is above all names, “so that all beings in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld, should bend the knee at the name of Jesus, to the glory of God the Father.” It is in Him that we find salvation and life.
GOSPEL - Matthew 26, 14 - 27, 66 - In Matthew's gospel, the passion narrative begins with Judas' betrayal. What could have caused this man to be so disillusioned with Jesus as to betray him? Or was it simply a matter of money? Then, Matthew presents the Passover celebration, in which Jesus takes the place of the lamb, offering himself as a paschal sacrifice, in which his blood is "poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." After supper, Jesus went with the apostles to spend the night on a property called Gethsemane. There he was arrested. During the night he was tried by the Sanhedrin; condemned as a false prophet, he was tortured. At dawn, they took him to Pilate, accusing him of pretending to be king of the Jews. Pilate realised the falsity of the accusation but eventually sentenced him to death for high treason. Realising his exhaustion, the soldiers forced Simon of Cyrene to carry his cross. At three o'clock in the afternoon, Jesus prayed with Psalm 22 saying: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?" And Jesus, “crying out in a loud voice, yielded up his spirit."
In this last Sunday of Lent, we are called to profess our faith in Jesus together with Martha: “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into this world.” We believe that he is the Resurrection and the Life. Only in him can we find life.
Faced with the pandemic of coronavirus, humanity is forced to stop and to reflect. Willingly or not, we are forced to recognise that we are all in the same boat. In our fragility, suddenly made aware of our powerlessness, we present ourselves before the Lord and cry out to him: Lord, the Resurrection and the Life, have pity on us and save us.
On 27 March, Pope Francis presided an EXTRAORDINARY MOMENT OF PRAYER.
Let us associate ourselves to him and to this prayer for humanity.
EXTRAORDINARY MOMENT OF PRAYER PRESIDED OVER BY POPE FRANCIS
“When evening had come” (Mk 4:35). The Gospel passage we have just heard begins like this. For weeks now it has been evening. Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air, we notice in people’s gestures, their glances give them away. We find ourselves afraid and lost. Like the disciples in the Gospel we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other. On this boat... are all of us. Just like those disciples, who spoke anxiously with one voice, saying “We are perishing” (v. 38), so we too have realized that we cannot go on thinking of ourselves, but only together can we do this.
It is easy to recognize ourselves in this story. What is harder to understand is Jesus’ attitude. While his disciples are quite naturally alarmed and desperate, he stands in the stern, in the part of the boat that sinks first. And what does he do? In spite of the tempest, he sleeps on soundly, trusting in the Father; this is the only time in the Gospels we see Jesus sleeping. When he wakes up, after calming the wind and the waters, he turns to the disciples in a reproaching voice: “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” (v. 40).
Let us try to understand. In what does the lack of the disciples’ faith consist, as contrasted with Jesus’ trust? They had not stopped believing in him; in fact, they called on him. But we see how they call on him: “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” (v. 38). Do you not care: they think that Jesus is not interested in them, does not care about them. One of the things that hurts us and our families most when we hear it said is: “Do you not care about me?” It is a phrase that wounds and unleashes storms in our hearts. It would have shaken Jesus too. Because he, more than anyone, cares about us. Indeed, once they have called on him, he saves his disciples from their discouragement.
The storm exposes our vulnerability and uncovers those false and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities. It shows us how we have allowed to become dull and feeble the very things that nourish, sustain and strengthen our lives and our communities. The tempest lays bare all our prepackaged ideas and forgetfulness of what nourishes our people’s souls; all those attempts that anesthetize us with ways of thinking and acting that supposedly “save” us, but instead prove incapable of putting us in touch with our roots and keeping alive the memory of those who have gone before us. We deprive ourselves of the antibodies we need to confront adversity.
In this storm, the façade of those stereotypes with which we camouflaged our egos, always worrying about our image, has fallen away, uncovering once more that (blessed) common belonging, of which we cannot be deprived: our belonging as brothers and sisters.
“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” Lord, your word this evening strikes us and regards us, all of us. In this world, that you love more than we do, we have gone ahead at breakneck speed, feeling powerful and able to do anything. Greedy for profit, we let ourselves get caught up in things, and lured away by haste. We did not stop at your reproach to us, we were not shaken awake by wars or injustice across the world, nor did we listen to the cry of the poor or of our ailing planet. We carried on regardless, thinking we would stay healthy in a world that was sick. Now that we are in a stormy sea, we implore you: “Wake up, Lord!”.
“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” Lord, you are calling to us, calling us to faith. Which is not so much believing that you exist, but coming to you and trusting in you. This Lent your call reverberates urgently: “Be converted!”, “Return to me with all your heart” (Joel 2:12). You are calling on us to seize this time of trial as a time of choosing. It is not the time of your judgement, but of our judgement: a time to choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not. It is a time to get our lives back on track with regard to you, Lord, and to others. We can look to so many exemplary companions for the journey, who, even though fearful, have reacted by giving their lives. This is the force of the Spirit poured out and fashioned in courageous and generous self-denial. It is the life in the Spirit that can redeem, value and demonstrate how our lives are woven together and sustained by ordinary people – often forgotten people – who do not appear in newspaper and magazine headlines nor on the grand catwalks of the latest show, but who without any doubt are in these very days writing the decisive events of our time: doctors, nurses, supermarket employees, cleaners, caregivers, providers of transport, law and order forces, volunteers, priests, religious men and women and so very many others who have understood that no one reaches salvation by themselves. In the face of so much suffering, where the authentic development of our peoples is assessed, we experience the priestly prayer of Jesus: “That they may all be one” (Jn 17:21). How many people every day are exercising patience and offering hope, taking care to sow not panic but a shared responsibility. How many fathers, mothers, grandparents and teachers are showing our children, in small everyday gestures, how to face up to and navigate a crisis by adjusting their routines, lifting their gaze and fostering prayer. How many are praying, offering and interceding for the good of all. Prayer and quiet service: these are our victorious weapons.
“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith”? Faith begins when we realise we are in need of salvation. We are not self-sufficient; by ourselves we founder: we need the Lord, like ancient navigators needed the stars. Let us invite Jesus into the boats of our lives. Let us hand over our fears to him so that he can conquer them. Like the disciples, we will experience that with him on board there will be no shipwreck. Because this is God’s strength: turning to the good everything that happens to us, even the bad things. He brings serenity into our storms, because with God life never dies.
The Lord asks us and, in the midst of our tempest, invites us to reawaken and put into practice that solidarity and hope capable of giving strength, support and meaning to these hours when everything seems to be floundering. The Lord awakens so as to reawaken and revive our Easter faith. We have an anchor: by his cross we have been saved. We have a rudder: by his cross we have been redeemed. We have a hope: by his cross we have been healed and embraced so that nothing and no one can separate us from his redeeming love. In the midst of isolation when we are suffering from a lack of tenderness and chances to meet up, and we experience the loss of so many things, let us once again listen to the proclamation that saves us: he is risen and is living by our side. The Lord asks us from his cross to rediscover the life that awaits us, to look towards those who look to us, to strengthen, recognize and foster the grace that lives within us. Let us not quench the wavering flame (cf. Is 42:3) that never falters, and let us allow hope to be rekindled.
Embracing his cross means finding the courage to embrace all the hardships of the present time, abandoning for a moment our eagerness for power and possessions in order to make room for the creativity that only the Spirit is capable of inspiring. It means finding the courage to create spaces where everyone can recognize that they are called, and to allow new forms of hospitality, fraternity and solidarity. By his cross we have been saved in order to embrace hope and let it strengthen and sustain all measures and all possible avenues for helping us protect ourselves and others. Embracing the Lord in order to embrace hope: that is the strength of faith, which frees us from fear and gives us hope.
“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith”? Dear brothers and sisters, from this place that tells of Peter’s rock-solid faith, I would like this evening to entrust all of you to the Lord, through the intercession of Mary, Health of the People and Star of the stormy Sea. From this colonnade that embraces Rome and the whole world, may God’s blessing come down upon you as a consoling embrace. Lord, may you bless the world, give health to our bodies and comfort our hearts. You ask us not to be afraid. Yet our faith is weak and we are fearful. But you, Lord, will not leave us at the mercy of the storm. Tell us again: “Do not be afraid” (Mt 28:5). And we, together with Peter, “cast all our anxieties onto you, for you care about us” (cf. 1 Pet 5:7).
Through the gospel of Jesus, the liturgy goes on presenting the great themes in the preparation of the catechumen for the baptism. Last Sunday, with the Samaritan woman, we asked for the living water. In this Sunday, we are called to become aware of our blindness and then be confident that Jesus will open our eyes for us to see the light. Then, next week, we will be called to accept Jesus as the source of life.
“As Jesus went along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth.” That man represents our own blindness, that is the blindness of God’s people. It is as if we were born blind and are unable to see. Always aware of his surroundings, Jesus was the first one to see the blind man. Then the apostles, thinking like the majority of people, gave voice to their suspicion that this physical handicap was the result of sin, be it of his parents or of himself. Jesus put aside that way of thinking, saying: "This has nothing to do with his or his parents' sins”. In fact, this was an occasion "for the works of God to manifest in him". And Jesus is the one who does the works of the Father. And then Jesus “spat on the ground, made a paste with the spittle, put this over the eyes of the blind man” and told him to “go and wash in the Pool of Siloam”. We may think that Jesus acted as a traditional healer, but we should remember that in the gospel of John every detail is full of meaning. Jesus’ action brings to mind the text from Genesis about the creation of man: “the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” (Gn 2:7). Jesus, as the Word (the Logos), through whom everything was created, made a paste from the soil (the dust of the ground) and put it over the eyes of the blind, telling him to go and wash. Passing from darkness into light, it is as if Jesus created a new man, a man who is able to see the light, to recognise the Messiah and to kneel before him in adoration. The healing of the blind man let us realise that the encounter with Christ makes it possible to move from darkness to light and from blindness to vision.
The healing - the being created anew - made it possible for the blind man to walk along the path of faith. As we read the passage, we can notice the steps of this journey. Immediately after his healing, the blind man realised that he had received a great gift from God. However, he had not seen yet the face of the one who healed him. Seeing him, people were surprised and wanted to know how he had been healed and who had done it. At each question, as he tried to answer, he took a step forward in his journey of faith. To the question about the healer, he had a name, Jesus. He did not know anything else beyond this simple truth: a “man called Jesus” had given him sight. Then the Pharisees came to question him and, answering them, he affirms that Jesus is a prophet. But the Pharisees would not accept the miracle and went on adding question upon question, in an attempt to confuse the man and to silence him. Their insistence and their utter refusal to accept the truth led the blind man to recognise that Jesus comes from God and does the works of God. He would not lie to please those who looked down upon him and he paid for his boldness and courage, being expelled from the synagogue. Before meeting Jesus face to face, he was already being persecuted because of Jesus. And it was then that Jesus manifested himself to him as the Messiah and he professed his faith: "The man fell down before Jesus and exclaimed:" I believe, Lord “.
Let us ask the Lord to give us light and gives the strength and the courage to recognise him as Saviour and to be witnesses to his work of salvation.
THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD
a psalm (23) of trust and confidence
in these times of fear because of the pandemic covid-19 (coronavirus)
The Lord is my shepherd: there is nothing I shall want.
The Lord is my shepherd;
there is nothing I shall want.
Fresh and green are the pastures
where he gives me repose.
Near restful waters he leads me,
to revive my drooping spirit.
The Lord is my shepherd: there is nothing I shall want.
He guides me along the right path;
he is true to his name.
If I should walk in the valley of darkness
no evil would I fear.
You are there with your crook and your staff;
with these you give me comfort.
The Lord is my shepherd: there is nothing I shall want.
You have prepared a banquet for me
in the sight of my foes.
My head you have anointed with oil;
my cup is overflowing.
The Lord is my shepherd: there is nothing I shall want.
Surely goodness and kindness shall follow me
all the days of my life.
In the Lord’s own house shall I dwell
for ever and ever.
The Lord is my shepherd: there is nothing I shall want.
In this third Sunday of Lent, we are called to accompany the Samaritan woman with whom Jesus had a profound dialogue about the “living water”. We can look at her journey of faith and reflect upon our own, comparing our attitudes to hers. Do we allow ourselves to be guided by Jesus as she did? So let us have a look at her journey of faith step by step.
Jesus took the initiative. Indeed, throughout the Scriptures, God is the one who always takes the initiative. He gives the first step. So, it is not a surprise that we find Jesus “sat straight down by the well”, as if waiting for that foreign woman.
Jesus introduced himself as someone who needs help and he asked for something easy to give, a little water to drink. He does the same with us: humbling himself, he comes close to us and asks for something, which does not demand much from us. In a way, we may consider his request as simply an excuse to start a conversation. Then, we discover that, little by little, step by step, Jesus took the interlocutor to new heights, leading her from ignorance to understanding and from being stranger to becoming a disciple so close to Jesus that he reveals himself to her.
From a non-believer, she became a believer. Her first reaction was surprise and even suspicion, seeing Jesus as another rude Jew, whom she should approach with caution. However, she is open to start a conversation and that openness is essential for any further step.
When Jesus suggests that she is the one who should ask for a drink to be given “living water”, she made a full of irony: “Are you a greater man than our father Jacob?” However, hearing Jesus’ promise of water for eternal life, she ends up asking: “Give me some of that water!” I too am thirsty with an insatiable thirst, and only the Lord Jesus can quench my thirst.
Then Jesus goes a step further, leads her to have a good look at her life and face the mess she is in. Before Jesus, she does not claim to be just and perfect, but with sincerity and truthfulness, she recognises her sin. Indeed, her life has been a mess: in vain, she has searched for love, only to be trapped in relationships that degrade her.
Jesus recognised her sincerity and praised her for that. For the first time, someone took her seriously and for that she recognised Jesus as a prophet, emboldening her to ask about the true worship that is due to God.
Jesus’ answer allowed her to direct the conversation towards the coming of the Messiah. And then Jesus made himself known as the Messiah: “I who am speaking to you,’ said Jesus ‘I am he.”
For that Samaritan woman, Jesus was no longer an insolent Jew, but the Messiah and, because she had been with him, she found meaning in her life and she could not keep it to herself. She had to announce this Good News. And thus she did, going to the village and spreading the news to everyone she met. Because of her testimony, they too went to Jesus and recognised him as the Messiah.
In this woman's life, there had been six men: the five previous husbands and the man with whom she lived now. None of them had given her happiness, until a seventh man appeared in her life - Jesus, who offered the living water, leading her to find the meaning of her life. It is in him that her heart finds rest.
In this second Sunday of Lent, we are called to contemplate the Lord Jesus who reveals himself in all glory and majesty. Jesus had already informed his disciples of his impending passion and death and the disciples had reacted with apprehension and disbelief. The outspoken Peter had even reproached Jesus and affirmed with all certainty: “This shall never happen to you.”. Jesus used harsh words to reprehend him: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me.” (Mt 16:22-23). After this incident, Jesus went on insisting on the theme of the cross, not only for himself but for his disciples as well: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Mt 16:24). At the end of all this talk, we may be left with the impression that Jesus was intent on discouraging his followers, making it very difficult to be his disciples. They were puzzled and could not understand the path that Jesus was determined to follow. Certainly, Jesus was well aware of that and he decided to proportionate Peter, James and John a very deep and personal experience, for them to realise that the cross was the way to glory and the death the gate to life. Jesus took them to a high mountain, for them to be in touch with the transcendent and the divine. And there “he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.” It was as if Jesus allowed them to see through his humanity and contemplate the glory of his divinity.
During this Lent season, we must accompany those three disciples and climb the mountain, leaving behind our daily worries and allowing ourselves to be touched by God, so that we may contemplate Jesus, the beloved Son. This is not an everyday experience, but Lent is a special gift, which we receive from the Lord and, during this time, we get closer to him, so that we may be transformed by him. In Jesus’ manner, we will be transfigured as well and God will address us the words that he said to Jesus: “This is my beloved Son!”. In Jesus, we become God’s children, in such a way that our bodies will be transformed to become “like his glorious body” (Phil 3:21).
In Jesus, God “has saved us and called us to be holy – not because of anything we have done but for his purpose and by his grace.” (2 Tim 1:9).
I SUNDAY OF LENT - Genesis 2:7-9,3:1-7 and Matthew 4:1-11
The books of Genesis presents God fashioning man from the soil, breathing into him “the breath of life”. This indicates, on the one hand, our human fragility, because we are made of the dust of the earth animated by a breath that easily vanishes; and on the other hand, it indicates our dignity and our quality almost divine, because we have in ourselves the spirit (breath) of God. For human beings, God prepared a harmonious world, full of pleasant things to give them well-being and peace. In this harmonious and beautiful world, God gave only one rule: they should not eat the fruit of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" because it is a poisoned fruit. However, human beings see any rule as a denial of their freedom and an obstruction to their autonomy; and look at God as someone who destroys their dreams and prevents them from being themselves. The great sin of humanity is a cry of revolt against God, so that we become autonomous and independent, making our rules, deciding about good and evil and proclaiming ourselves to be gods. However, in the end, we have the same fate of Adam and Eve: like them, After all, we become ashamed of ourselves and of each other.
The story of Adam and Eve is not an old story devoid of any significance, because it sounds like a crazy story. In fact, it is a very actual story, speaking about ourselves and describing in a very simple manner the way humans try to live their lives. Today more than in the past, the humans affirm themselves and set themselves up as rulers of the universe, rejecting God’s commandments, so that they become the only judges of good and evil. God, if ever he existed, has died. We are the only gods and as the only true gods, we are the centre of the world. In this self-centredness, selfishness becomes rampant. We enjoy the fruits of our independence and our selfishness, but these fruits are poisonous; they bring envy, jealousy, hatred which bear violence, exploitation and oppression. We end up being slaves and bringing shame upon ourselves.
In the gospel (Mt 4:1-11), we find Jesus’ obedience and his total faithfulness to God, in contrast to Adam and Eve, the sinful humanity. Jesus was tempted like all of us, not only in the desert but throughout his life until the last moments, when he was dying on the cross. The temptations - those of Jesus and ours - are alternative proposals presented as beneficial and advantageous in order to achieve well-being and personal fulfilment. They always focus on ourselves, proposing to make life easier for us. It is as if everything revolves around us and we become the centre of the universe. In the first proposal, Jesus is told to use his divine power to solve his personal problems (his hunger), which become the only problems to which he must pay attention. In the second proposal, he is told to do something miraculous and extravagant (to throw himself down from the parapet of the temple), in order to gain fame and acquire followers. And finally, he is told to gain wealth and power in order to be the lord of the world, even if he has to resort to demonic powers and reject God. Jesus' temptations are an explanation of the temptations of Adam and Eve. They are the great temptations of humanity, promising progress, well-being, life in abundance and happiness. However, these proposals are false and misleading, leading us to hatred, violence, death and unhappiness.
We must choose which way we are going: either we behave like Adam and Eve, becoming gods unto ourselves or we decide to be faithful like Jesus, accepting God’s word and living by it.
VII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Leviticus 19:1-2,17-18
“Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” This is the ideal proposed to all of us. We are called to holiness, since God who made us in his image, is holy. Being holy means that we should not distort God’s image with a kind of behaviour that brings dishonour to God. We may say that God’s word implies more than the proposal of an ideal; it is an order, a commandment. And this holiness is the reason for all other commandments. We should do nothing that brings harm to others. In our relationship with others, there is no place for hatred, violence and vengeance. We should not “bear a grudge against” others, but “You must love your neighbour as yourself”. The commandment of love - the so called golden rule - has its foundation on God’s holiness. We are very much mistaken if we think of holy things as being the things that mediate God’s holiness to us. The book of Leviticus makes it clear that God’s holiness must have a bearing upon our behaviour towards others. It is in our relationship with others that we may reveal the presence of God’s holiness in our lives.
In the gospel, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explains what being holy means. He said: “be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). And in the manner of the Leviticus, Jesus explains that this perfection leads to a relationship with others based on love. To violence, we must not answer with violence. Instead, to hatred, we must answer with love: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. Only by doing that we show that we are God’s children. God’s merciful love must reveal itself on the way we relate to others. Being children of God, we must be a presence of peace and reconciliation.
Certainly to be holy or to be perfect according to God’s measure seems to be a wishful desire, impossible to fulfil. Indeed, how can human beings be perfect as God is perfect? Where can that perfection come from? In the second reading, Paul gives the answer: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16). He is the one who makes us holy. It is the Holy Spirit dwelling in us who transforms us from within, so that little by little we become more and more like Jesus Christ, the holy Son of God.
