WALKING ALONGSIDE JESUS
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. From today we enter Holy Week. The first part of today's Mass is the celebration of Palm Sunday, where we celebrate the event of Jesus being welcomed as a King in Jerusalem. The day when the grand procession, the glorious march of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem was accompanied by cheers, a procession of greatness. This march of Jesus was not a coincidence.
Jesus did this deliberately in order to show everyone who He really was before He entered into His suffering and death on the cross, the cross of humiliation. He was the Messiah promised by the prophets. He was the King who would come to bring peace to all those who please God. He was the redeemer and Savior of the whole world. However, Jesus knew very well that behind the joy and excitement there would be sorrow that He was ready to experience.
The second part is the celebration of Passion Sunday, where we are invited to reflect further on the suffering that Jesus experienced in atoning for our sin. In this case, although Jesus is God, He became like us humans. He felt the same suffering as us humans. No wonder, just because of His great love for us, Jesus was willing to suffer, was crucified on the hill of Golgotha and buried, but rose on the third day. This is the "paschal mystery of Jesus" that many people in the world may still have doubts about.
When entering Jerusalem, Jesus used a borrowed donkey. Indeed, in many events in Jesus' life, He showed how God became a man who had nothing and was poor so that we would become rich because of His poverty. When Jesus taught, He borrowed a man's boat, He borrowed bread and fish from a child's provision to feed the crowd. Even when He was born, He borrowed a manger to feed animals, when He died, He borrowed a tomb, and for the salvation and happiness of mankind, He borrowed a man's heart. Now, He borrowed a donkey to enter Jerusalem.
Jesus, the King of peace and simplicity, did not seek pomp, praise, or popularity. Because He knew that everything was useless, meaningless, false, unimportant. For Jesus, it was about doing the will of His Father, being obedient and faithful. Therefore, Jesus also chose a donkey, a stupid animal but loyal to its master, firm, strong, not wild, and not afraid when faced with a shouting and cheering crowd. The donkey was a dumb animal but calmly moved forward slowly.
A question for us to reflect on: Are we better and more perfect than the crowd in Jerusalem? Jesus told the two disciples sent to the donkey owner, "God needs him". And today and in the days of our lives ahead, God no longer needs a donkey, but He needs us to be saved. God needs us to bring love, peace, forgiveness, love to others. God needs our hearts, our families, our communities to be with Him in the eternal heavenly Jerusalem.
Let us walk with Jesus even though we face many risks, challenges, sufferings, crosses, losses, betrayals.
PEACE BE WITH YOU
-Fr. Andy Fani, SVD-