HOMILY - PALM SUNDAY - A - March 16, 2008

Palm Sunday, now called Passion Sunday, is an uneasy union of names. The liturgy of Passion Sunday is a collision of themes: glorious hosannas and somber omens. It is both for the great triumphant procession of palms as well as the betrayed allegiances of the human heart are both woven into the Passion and death of Jesus.

Isaiah promised a servant of God who would have a “face set like flint” to brave the pummeling, spit, and ridicule. Paul’s lovely hymn in Philippians is one of triumph—“every knee should bend in heaven and earth and every tongue confess”—but only after disgrace and ignominious death.

We have heard for the reading of the Passion how Christ has suffered, indicted, condemned and abandoned by the very people who shouted hosanna days before. This is not a drama hatched by Christ and his disciples. This is a real life experience of the Son of God willingly gave himself up to death in order that we may have life.

The cry of Jesus of his abandonment rings out even to our present time and it is becoming louder and louder everyday ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

It was three o’clock in the afternoon when Jesus let out this cry towards heaven. For three long hours he hung, nailed hands and feet to the cross. He had lived his brief life in one continuous act of self-giving: he healed the sick and raised the dead, he multiplied the loaves of bread and forgave sinners, and he spoke words of wisdom and of life. While yet on the cross, he forgave those who crucified him, he opened the gates of heaven to the good thief, and then gave his body and blood for us, after having already given it to us in the Eucharist. In the end, he cried out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

To be "forsaken" means to be deserted, abandoned, to be given up on and renounced. It is a harsh word meant to describe the hot unbearable hurt and the private pain of those who are left to suffer alone! When someone is forsaken they feel as if everyone and everything has given up on them-their family, their friends, their faith community, their society, their country, and, yes, even their God! One need only listen to frightening cry of Psalm 22 to sense the horror of such abandonment, a cry which was also placed on the lips of Jesus by the Gospel writers: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, so far from the words of my groaning?"

But who is this Jesus who cried out in a loud voice as being forsaken? He is the figure of those who are ignorant. He is the figure of all who are needy, or maladjusted, or disabled; of those who are unloved, neglected, or excluded. He personifies all those human and social situations which, more than any others, cry out for compassion and care in a special way.

Jesus forsaken is the paradigm of those who need someone to give and do something for them. Therefore, he is the perfect example, the ultimate measure of the poor, the needy, the neglected, the abandoned, the victimized, the terrorized, the abused, the aborted, the murdered, the euthanized, the homeless and the lonely, who manifests the ultimate measure of our responsibility. To go further, he represents our brothers and sister in far away land who cry out for help. The hungry and neglected in Asia and Africa, the broken bones and spirit of people in Middle East and in war torn countries. The children who are victims of human trafficking sold for prostitution. The families broken by divorce and separation. Parents who have to deal with their kids drown in drug abuse and victims of neighborhood violence and gang related killings and abductions. Parents who have to care for their disabled and handicapped children. Jesus forsaken and abandoned indicates to us the boundless limits of the need for our love and attention; and at the same time, the boundless limits of our Christian solidarity to help and to go out of our way

Mary was at the foot of Jesus when he shouted theses words of abandonment. She felt very strongly that she should be with Jesus and to be in solidarity with Jesus. Pope John Paul the Great in his Encyclical ask all of us to be in solidarity with all those who are abandoned and forsaken. The exercise of solidarity within each society is valid when its members recognize one another as persons. Those who are more influential, because they have a greater share of goods and common services, should feel responsible for the weaker and be ready to share with them all they possess.

This Holy Week, we listen carefully at the cry of Jesus, the abandoned and forsaken, let us also listen carefully and feel the cries of our neighbors, brothers and sisters in their state of abandonment.