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For Palm Sunday of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ

For Palm Sunday of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Last updated on: March 27, 2021 at 2:14 pm by Fr. Stephanos Pedrano, O.S.B.

For Palm Sunday of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ 2021-03-27T14:14:56-08:00 Fr. Stephanos Pedrano, O.S.B.

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Passion, Power, Majesty, Judgment, Authority

Mark 14-15

Today in his Gospel, Christ has us witness again his suffering and death on the cross.

Already last week at daily Mass, the prayer called the “preface” spoke to our heavenly Father of the suffering and death of Christ on the cross.

For through the saving Passion of your Son
the whole world has received a heart
to confess the infinite power of your majesty,
since by the wondrous power of the Cross
your judgment on the world is now revealed
and the authority of Christ crucified.

The prayer speaks of the Passion, the suffering of Christ crucified, but also of power, majesty and authority.

It is a paradox to speak of power, majesty and authority coming from suffering.

Furthermore, our faith and prayer acclaim the untold paradox of the suffering unto death of one who is GOD.

How may we find power, majesty and authority through the cross, while in our own lives we yet suffer and die?

Christ said:

If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples,
and you will know the truth,
and the truth will make you free.
Truly, truly, I say to you,
every one who commits sin is a slave to sin. [Cf. Jn. 8:31-34]

Christ sets truth and freedom against sin and slavery.

He says the truth will make us free, while sin makes us its slaves.

But was Christ free when Pilate handed him over to death, when soldiers pounded nails through his body, and when he sagged from those nails on the cross?

It would be easy to answer that he was going to rise from the dead anyway.

But that answer ignores the truth and freedom that appear and are present on the cross itself.

On the cross, God who is Love abandons himself absolutely to freedom from self-concern.

Love gives away its all on the cross.

Love that does not need anyone to give love back!

God who is Love began to live as a man some two thousand and twenty years ago.

With that birth, human flesh and blood, a human mind and heart began to be the sign, the place and the event of Love in person giving itself away.

Christ is God.

His suffering and death are the power, majesty and authority of the Divine Love freely giving himself up and away in human flesh and blood.

In THIS world, one cannot ask more of love than that; and God’s love in this world would not do anything LESS than that.

The cross already shows and gives to the world God’s power, majesty and authority, God’s truth, freedom and love.

In the flesh and blood of Christ, the world of flesh and blood is set free from slavery, sin, suffering and death by rising from the dead, swollen with all the power, majesty and authority of God’s Holy Spirit of truth and freedom and love.

The truth is that God made us human beings for happiness and freedom in knowing and loving God and in loving as God loves.

God wants to swell every fiber of our being, heart, soul, mind and strength.

God wants to swell every fiber of our being with his Spirit of Truth and Freedom and Love.

He gives us that Spirit in the same flesh and blood that received birth in Bethlehem, death outside Jerusalem and everlasting resurrection in a garden.

And so Christ says:

If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples,
and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

The Word of the Lord tells us:

God our savior desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth: there is one God and one mediator between God and men… Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all. [1 Tim. 2:4‑6]

Our ransom in person in flesh and blood is now our Eucharistic Food and Drink.

Turn. Love. Repeat.

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