“You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me” (John 12:8).
Monday of Holy Week
Is 42:1-7; Ps 27: John 12:1-11
Holy Week 2023 continues with Scripture readings from Isaiah 42, Psalm 27 and John 12 that seem to describe a warrior planting his feet firmly in preparation for battle. But he has no weapons except trust in God and in the ultimate victory of justice over oppression. Jesus, reclining at table in Bethany, has been aware since his baptism that he is God’s Servant, the Christ – anointed one. He knows that the final Passover he will celebrate with his disciples will culminate in the sacrifice of the Lamb of God – himself – to signal the great Exodus from sin to freedom, through death to new life.
After his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus had retired to Bethany to the home of Martha, Mary and their brother, Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. The mood of this victory dinner is disrupted by Mary’s act of anointing Jesus with a very costly liter of aromatic nard, a burial rite, and the disciples are shocked by Mary’s implication. Judas criticizes her for an extravagant waste that could have been spent on feeding the poor.
Jesus knows that Mary alone understands that he is about to die. As she grieves for him, her heart breaks open like the sealed container of perfume, and its fragrance fills the house. Jesus utters the famous line, “You will always have the poor with you,” an indictment of the world’s neglect of those most in need of love. The very source of God’s compassion is now present in their midst, but they do not recognize him. The disciples are about to lose him, and they still do not grasp what Jesus is about to accomplish on their behalf.
Mary’s passionate show of love for Jesus by washing and anointing his feet will appear in the next chapter of John’s Gospel. Her gift to Jesus will be his final gift to his disciples. Only after his death will they begin to understand the depth of his love for them, expressed by his kneeling to wash their feet at the Last Supper. This dramatic example summarizing all his teaching will substitute for the institution of the Eucharist portrayed in the other Gospels. It conveys deeply the meaning of the death of Jesus in the “breaking of the bread.” In a few days on Holy Thursday in our parishes, we will repeat this ritual for one another.
Other connections are possible. Lazarus’ presence at the table reminds us of Luke’s story of the poor man of the same name whose wounds are licked by dogs. That parable ends with Jesus’ words that even if someone were to rise to the dead, some would still not heed his decisive warning to care for the poor. This final sign in the fourth Gospel will go unheeded as Jesus begins his Passion. Only after his Resurrection will the connection between his return and our response of justice for the poor be clear. This is the unmistakable sign at the heart of the Gospel. The poor are always with us to remind us that God hides among them waiting to be served.
Our ritual of foot washing on Holy Thursday will impress this connection between action for justice and our reception of the Eucharist, an empty sign if we do not live it by caring for one another in loving service.
“He saved others; he cannot save himself” (Matt 27:33).
Palm/Passion Sunday
Mt 21:1-11; Is 50:4-7; Ps 22; Phil 2:6-11; Mt 26:14—27:66
The utter improbability of the Gospel is apparently something the early church was eager to proclaim. By worldly standards, the arrival of the Messiah, hailing from Nazareth in Galilee, riding into Jerusalem on an ass, was a perfect parody of royal and imperial power. Behold, the clown prince of Al Capp’s Dogpatch blowing into D.C. on a tractor to clean up the government and save the world.
Conquering kings and Roman generals marched into vanquished cities astride white stallions, trumpets blaring and banners waving. This was real power. Matthew instead fulfills prophecies from Isaiah and Zechariah that depict God’s servant coming in lowly estate, welcomed by the poor waving branches and spreading their cloaks on the road before him. These prophecies mocked imperial pretensions to real authority, which comes from God alone.
In yet another twist of this parody, Matthew subverts the crowd’s show of support for Jesus by contrasting it with the howling mob that just days later will reject him as messiah and call for his crucifixion.
With our own Palm Sunday, we begin with a ride on a donkey and then a roller coaster of high expectation and sudden collapse as Jesus’ ministry comes to an appalling end on Golgotha. The man on the donkey pays the ultimate price for his insolence and presumption. Son of God, indeed.
Indeed. Believers who re-enact Palm Sunday know that the story was written backwards in the light of the Resurrection. If Jesus is not risen from the dead, there is no story to tell, no Good News. So, our procession with palms and our participation in the reading of Matthew’s long Passion account today is a walk in faith, step by step, deeper and deeper into our own commitment to share in the mystery of the cross in order to know the meaning of the resurrection.
The Passion we read today is rich in details, beginning with Jesus’ agony in the garden, his betrayal by Judas, the flight of the disciples and the triple denial of Peter. Condemned by the Sanhedrin, Jesus is sent to Pilate, who fears being reported in Rome for freeing a rival to the emperor and trades “king” Jesus for Barabbas, a revolutionary, and sends Jesus to be flogged, mocked and crucified.
During a nightmare of reversals and broken dreams, only the women remain faithful, and they alone keep watch during the silent interval after Jesus’ death and rushed burial. From their dark night will rise up the first glimpse of faith on Easter morning. Even then, the chosen Twelve, in hiding, will be slow to understand what has happened.
Palm/Passion Sunday is unique in that all of us assembled to mark the start of Holy Week will be invited to share in the dramatic reading of the Passion. As participants, we are challenged to cross the threshold of faith to accept the pattern of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection in our lives. Only by uniting ourselves, mind, heart, soul and strength with Jesus, will we begin to be true disciples. The memory of Jesus’ Passion is a living call to follow him in our own time, whatever the cost.
We commemorate the Passion of Jesus in order to take up his redemptive mission in our own time and place. He revealed God’s way of drawing history toward the Beloved Community of justice and love. This is how we will enter into that difficult process, but it is the only road to Easter.
Pope Francis used his third day at Rome’s Gemelli hospital to visit children hospitalized in the oncology ward and to confer the sacrament of baptism on a tiny infant named Miguel Angel.
The child, who was just a few weeks old, was sleeping peacefully in a portable hospital bassinet as the pope and the mother prepared for the sacrament and medical staff looked on March 31. The Holy See press office provided a video of the baptism and other images of the pope’s visit to the pediatric ward.
The pope was given a small metal emesis basin filled with water. Reciting the baptismal formula in Spanish, he sprinkled the water with his hand on the baby, who loudly protested the sudden shower. He urged the mother to go ahead and try and comfort the infant while the pope made his own attempts by soothing the child’s face and tapping his mouth.
The pope wrote out by hand the baptismal certificate as seen in another image, which also showed the pope’s left wrist wrapped in gauze and an elastic bandage.
The pope spent about 30 minutes visiting the ward, bringing the children rosaries, large chocolate Easter eggs and copies of the book « Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea. »
The surprise visit came the day after the pope enjoyed a pizza « party » with staff on his second night at Rome’s Gemelli hospital.
In the evening of March 30, « Pope Francis had dinner, eating pizza together with those assisting him throughout the days of his hospital stay, » that is, doctors, nurses, assistants and members of the Vatican police, the Vatican press office said March 31.
After breakfast on March 31, « he read some newspapers and resumed work, » it said.
Francis was expected to be able to return to his Vatican residence April 1, the press office said, although the final decision would depend on the results of tests carried out early March 31.
Matteo Bruni, head of the press office, later confirmed the 86-year-old pope’s « presence » at the Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square April 2.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, said, « With the pope at each celebration, there will be a cardinal celebrant who will be at the altar, » the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica reported March 31.
