Palm Sunday, Year B

Isaiah, 45:21-25
Philippians, 2:5-11
Mark, 14:32-15:46

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Last Wednesday morning, I heard about Iraqis dancing in the streets of Baghdad. Like a good Jesuit, I calculated that the significance of the moment justified relaxing my Lenten discipline. So I turned on the television and saw some extraordinary pictures. The one that must have struck Christians most sharply showed Iraqis dancing in the street, shouting "There is no God but Allah!," flashing the ‘V' for victory sign, and waving palm fronds in the air. Incredible! They were waving palms as the U.S. troops poured into the city. Regardless of whether you supported the decision for war or thought the war was a mistake, watching the celebration was exciting. These elated, dazed people were being released from the constant fear, cruelty, and brutality of an evil dictator. The dream they did not dare to dream was becoming reality. We have to hope and to pray for the future of Iraqi people, and that our country will live up to its considerable responsibilities, that the magnanimity, the generosity, the wisdom of our nation after World War II has not left us.

If only temporarily, the Coalition's military victory in Iraq will probably buoy our national mood, which has been far more anxious and uncertain than normal. Unfortunately the fall of Saddam will probably not give us much greater security or make us fear terrorism a whole lot less. Days before the fall of Baghdad, one email witticism seemed to have penetrated most of the electronic ether; my brother said he received about a dozen copies of it. It read:

You know the world's gone mad when
the best rapper is a white guy,
the best golfer is a black guy,
the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese,
the Swiss hold the America's Cup,
France is accusing the United States of arrogance,
and the Germans don't want to go to war!

I sent this to my mother, who replied: "My son is a priest!" I love irony, but the irony of the email expresses an uneasiness, even a jitteriness, which has been so prevalent in recent months. There has been, and still is, as much fear as in any time I can remember: the constant helicopters flying over downtown; the at times overwhelming police presence - there have been days when I literally have seen a cop on every corner; the terrorist warnings; the sagging, anemic economy. The military victory in Iraq may provide us with some emotional relief, but we all know that the hard part is not over. Perhaps more challenging, we now have to win the peace, that is overcoming the chaos, healing the misery, and building a democracy in a deeply divided, suspicious, hurting, broken nation.

When I see a waving palm frond, I think, "It takes less than a week for things to change drastically, for elation and joy to become darkness and horror." Palm Sunday reminds us just how fickle human emotions are. We welcome our Lord's entry into Jerusalem, the city of peace, this morning, and we are waving palms. Five days from now the city that welcomed him was crying for his crucifixion. That is the truth of every human heart. Jesus went up to Jerusalem to proclaim the Good News, to insist that people choose to follow him or to execute him, and we must not deny that Jerusalem's response is our response. Sure, through grace, we do sometimes respond positively to God, but none of us is a whole lot different from the crowd in Jerusalem. And the Good News is that Jesus overcomes our faults, forgives our sins, and makes things right. It all happens this week, in a three act opera, which is at the heart of our religion. Today is the prelude. The Sacred Triduum, the Sacred Three Days - Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, is what it's all about: death and life, betrayal and love, madness and sanity, horror and joy. We need to be here for every act because there's no Resurrection without the Cross, no holy communion without the Passion, no love without Gethsemane.

On Thursday evening, Jesus gave his followers his body and blood, the bread of heaven, angels' food. So we begin the Maundy Thursday mass with rejoicing; we sing the hymn of the angels, Gloria in excelsis Deo. Then the mood changes, becoming more somber as the Passion nears. At the Last Supper before breaking bread, Jesus girded himself with a towel and washed the feet of his disciples, even Judas'. Jesus told his disciples, "A new commandment I give unto you; that ye love one another as I have loved you." (John 13:34) On Thursday, the choir sings this as the celebrant washes the feet of parishioners. The foot-washing should be emblematic of our common life together, of serving one another in humility and charity; that is our ideal. It is why we are Christians, and it requires courage and strength and sanity.

After the mass on Thursday evening, the altar party takes the Blessed Sacrament, the body of our Lord, away from the High Altar - away from the Upper Room where our Lord celebrated the Last Supper - and processes to the Altar of Repose. Our Lord spent his final evening in the Garden of Gethsemane. The Altar of Repose is Gethsemane. Following the Last Supper, he had gone out to the Garden to pray, and also was tempted to run away from the coming agony. But Jesus reverses the Garden of Eden, the other Garden, where human beings had succumbed to temptation, to following our own will, our own desires. Instead in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus had prayed, "Father, all things are possible for you, so take away this cup of suffering from me; but not what I will, but what you will." All of us should accompany Christ in the Garden. He asked S. Peter and the disciples, he asks his followers, "Sit with me while I'm in the garden." Can we not watch with him, if only for half an hour? Thursday evening and Friday morning, we have the opportunity to withstand temptation and to make time to watch with him, to be with him.

The rites of Good Friday show the bleakness of life without Christ. It is a day to be quiet, to remember, to mourn, to lament. The liturgy begins with the altar party entering the church in silence and falling prostrate before the stripped, barren altar. We hear some readings; we sing the Passion according to John; we pray for the Church and the world. Words are not enough to express our sorrow; we have to make some kind of act, a demonstration of our sorrow, of our contrition, of our gratitude, of our desire to love Christ. So we creep to the cross to adore the Lord. All of us come to the cross on our knees and kiss his feet, the feet of our King.

Since we crucified our Lord on Good Friday, the Church does not celebrate the mass. Instead, we receive the Blessed Sacrament consecrated the night before. So after venerating the cross, we process over to altar of repose, the Garden of Gethsemane, and bring our Lord back to the High Altar - to Mount Calvary. We receive communion, and the choir sings "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Not another word is said. Christ has died.

On Holy Saturday, since Christ has descended into hell, since he has yet to rise from the dead, we can not celebrate the mass, the mass which gives us the resurrected body of Christ. So on Saturday morning, we celebrate only the Liturgy of the Word, the first half of the mass, stopping at the offertory. We prepare for the final act of the great drama of Holy Week: the Vigil and the First Mass of Easter, the most ancient and profound Christian liturgy. Holy Saturday is a day of rest; it is the Sabbath, the day on which God rested after the Creation. But God renews his creation in his Son. So in the evening of Holy Saturday, you will enter a dark church. The darkness of the church makes us think of Christ's tomb; it also makes us think of Mary's womb. We begin the service by kindling and blessing the New Fire. The Book of Genesis begins with God speaking and creating light; and so the new creation begins with light entering the world. We glimpse the unity of resurrection and rebirth, of salvation and creation. At the back of the church, the opening of the tomb, underneath the rose window, a fire is kindled, and we think of the association of fire and the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost entered Mary's womb and conceived, breathed life; the Holy Ghost hovered over the waters at the beginning of time and called forth life and light, called forth form and order out of chaos and darkness.

The New Fire provides us just enough light to bless the Paschal Candle, which is then lit from the New Fire. The Paschal Candle represents Christ, who receives the fire of the Holy Ghost. The Light of Christ lightens the darkness as we process with it into the sanctuary and distribute light from it to the candles held by the congregation. Then we hear the Exsultet and the Prophecies, which place Christ's resurrection in the context of God's creation and his saving acts. In three of the four prophecies that we hear, water is a primary element: at the Creation, in the story of Noah, when Moses leads Israel through the Red Sea. The stories of the Creation, of the Flood, and of the Red Sea are types of baptisms, and they point to the next act of the Vigil, the blessing of the font and the renewal of our baptismal vows. After the font has been blessed, the celebrant sprinkles water on our heads, reminding us of the water breaking over our heads at baptism, reminding us of our birth in Christ, reminding us of the promise of resurrection. The litany of saints is sung because the promise of baptism is for us to be in the company of the saints, to be in heaven with God. And now, finally, we are prepared for the first mass of Easter. What follows is perhaps the most joyful moment of Church's year: the great moment when we proclaim God's victory over sin and death by singing the Gloria. The bells ring, the lights come on, the organ plays, darkness and death give way to light and resurrection. Christ has emerged from his tomb. The Mass can be celebrated.

Holy Week - from our Lord's entry into Jerusalem, to his Last Supper, to Gethsemane, to Calvary, to the Sepulchre, to the Resurrection - is an invitation for us to be renewed in our Lord, to change our lives, to strengthen us, to give us courage to endure the uncertainty and the madness of the world. As Jesus hung on the cross, his followers had abandoned him, had forsaken him. We participate in Holy Week to turn from our past mistakes, to change our lives, to become more godly, to renew our commitment to Christ. The last week of our Lord's life changed history, and it will change us: from darkness to light, from anxiety to courage, from sadness to dancing, from defeat to victory, from death to life.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.