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 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. 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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