WALKING THE PATH OF HIS HUMILITY

PALM SUNDAY

Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke,OP

Theme: Walking the Path of His Humility

As we enter the Holy Week with the celebration of Palm Sunday, a central message or theme stands out from the readings of today. The short ceremony of blessing of the palms, the procession, the readings, and the passion narrative all bring home to us the message of humility that characterizes the passion of the Saviour. Our Lord has completed his preaching mission and knew that his time had come to go up to Jerusalem for the ultimate Passover; he resolutely took the road to Jerusalem with his disciples. He made it a triumphant entry because it is the Father’s will as written in the scriptures. In addition to fulfilling his Father’s will, the entrance was the sacrament of his glorification. The Son of Man was about to inaugurate the new Jerusalem; that means he was about to ascend his everlasting throne, all as written in the scriptures. In the background is his intention to make it clear to his disciples that he was not forced to undertake his passion. He freely chose to make the sacrifice he was about to make in obedience to his Father, for the love of us humans and for our salvation. He let his disciples understand his foreknowledge of events by sending them to get a donkey and described all they would encounter. “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will sent it back here immediately.’”

Our Lord sat on the donkey and entered Jerusalem amidst the praise and adulations of his followers. The people of simple faith recognised and acclaim the king and the coming of the everlasting kingdom of David. Everything happened as prophesied, for the word of God cannot be set aside. When the symbolic entrance into Jerusalem was over, the Church put before us the passion narrative. The sharp contrast between the triumphant entrance and the passion narrative in the gospel is evident to everyone. We wonder why the Church chose to read the passion narrative today, notwithstanding that it will be read and celebrated on Good Friday. A way of understanding the contrast is what we have noted already. The triumphant entry into Jerusalem was a sacrament of the reality that is spiritual. The new Jerusalem and the kingdom of David is a spiritual reality open to all who believe in God. Thus, the foundation is the reality which the passion of the Lord inaugurated. To enter the eternal Jerusalem and the kingdom of God, we must all walk by faith in the word of God through the door of death into immortality. Jesus our Head teaches us by his passion the path of humility and faith leading to the heavenly communion. “His state was divine, yet Christ Jesus did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave and became as men are; and being as all men are, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross.” He needed not to walk this path of death, but he did in order to teach us by example. Now we understand: the triumphant entry shows us his divinity, and his passion shows us his humility unto death.

Let us pray: Almighty God, who as an example of humility for the human race to follow caused our Saviour to take flesh and submit to the Cross, graciously grant that we may heed his lesson of patient suffering and so merit a share in his Resurrection.