Today we begin the celebration of Holy Week, a very special time when
we reflect on the events that lead us through the death and
resurrection of Jesus, events which changed the course of history
forever. Because of these events we can now go to heaven when
we die. It’s that simple.
We begin with a short account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem,
hailed by the people as a great prophet. They threw down palm
branches in front of him and shouted ‘Hosanna! Blessings on
him who comes in the name of the Lord.’ Yet within a few days
everything changed. He was betrayed for money, illegally tried,
then tortured and killed. Today we read the full account of his
passion. It is the main focus of our mass.
Even though it is a sad event that we remember, it is also a day of
celebration, because what we remember is the wonderful event that
made it possible for us to experience the eternal life after this
one. That is so important, because if we couldn’t hope for a
better life after this one, it would be very hard to keep going a lot
of the time.
Everyone suffers, as you know, there are no exceptions.
Probably one of the most difficult things for any of us to experience
when we are suffering, is the sense that we have been abandoned by
everyone. Sometimes we even feel that God has left us and we
are on our own. This can be so difficult because we believe
that at least God won’t let us down even if everyone else does.
But where do we turn when God disappears too? There is no where
left to go. This is the worst kind of suffering. Of
course the truth is that God never abandons us, but we may feel that
He has.
Just before Jesus’ death on the cross, he cries out: ‘My God, my
God, why have you abandoned me?’ What does this mean?
It seems to point out that even Jesus felt completely abandoned by
the Father. He felt totally alone.
Why would God the Father hide himself from Jesus at the time when
Jesus most needed to know He was there? Perhaps it was so that
Jesus could experience this worst kind of suffering, the suffering of
believing that you have been abandoned even by God. By
experiencing this, Jesus is brought to the furthest extreme of
suffering, as it were. After this there is nothing that he has
not experienced and this means that he can understand us in every
kind of suffering we go through, even the feeling of being abandoned
by God, because he has been there. We can no longer say, ‘You
don’t know what it’s like!’ because now he does.
I think it is also good to remember that even though we may feel
we have been abandoned by God at times, that in fact we have not.
But sometimes God allows us to go through this for reasons only known
to God. It seems to be part of what forms us, even though it is
very difficult and we shrink away from it.
Finally I want to mention Our Lady. She also was at the foot of
the cross. Years before she had been told by the angel Gabriel
that Jesus would be great and would reign forever as king. He
would be called Son of the Most High God. What had happened to
all these promises now, as she watched Jesus come to the end of his
life before her eyes? Although Mary must have suffered terribly
at all she had to witness, she didn’t give up hope. She
believed that what God had said would come true and she hoped and
believed even without understanding. God invites us to do the
same; to hope even when we don’t understand. There is so much
that we don’t understand, but we try to believe that God knows what
God is doing and so we don’t give up.
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