by Fr. John Martin Shimkus, O.S.B.

      When you attend Mass on Palm Sunday, I’m sure you notice that there’s something different about it.  (Besides the fact that it’s longer!)  There’s a different feel to it, a feeling of involvement.  Everyone picks up a palm branch, there’s a special procession into the church, and even the gospel is read differently, with each part being taken by specific readers or the congregation.  In short, there is a greater sense of participation in the Palm Sunday Mass, a deliberate attempt to get everyone more involved in this particular liturgy.

     And that sense of involvement is a good thing, because when we are reflecting on events that took place almost 2,000 years ago, it is easy to feel disconnect from them.  We may even be tempted to start thinking “that was then, this is now”; that was Jesus’ story, but it doesn’t relate to our life.  But that would be a mistake.  The Passion is as much our story as it is the story of Jesus who “emptied himself” and “coming in human likeness” became “obedient to the point of death”.  It is this humanness of Jesus, this self-emptying of the God-made-man that makes his story so relevant for each of us. 

     So, in these final days leading up to Easter, I invite us all to look for and find ourselves in the Passion of Jesus.  Because everyone can identify in some way with what Jesus experienced in the last hours of his life.  Perhaps we identify with the sense of disappointment or betrayal at the Last Supper – when Jesus is getting ready to pour out his life for his friends and they are getting ready to run.  Maybe we relate to the moments of anguish Jesus felt in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he knew all too well what his mission demanded of him and his human nature was afraid.  Or maybe we know something of the physical suffering or the sense of aloneness reminding us of Jesus on the Cross.  Jesus undergoes all of these experiences, not just for us, but with us and in us, so that the Passion becomes our story, the story of humanity in its darkest hours, the story of our suffering, our abandonment, our cry for love and mercy.

     And as we ponder our place in these events, let’s not forget that the story does not end in defeat.  Rather, it is a story of faithfulness, the faithfulness of Jesus, the faithfulness of his Father, and our faithfulness as well.  Through the Passion of Christ, we receive the grace to be faithful to all that life demands of us.  Through our participation in his suffering and death, we too pass through the challenges and limitations of this life and into the joy and peace of a life that never ends.  So let us not be mere spectators at our own salvation, even when we would rather escape from our trials and pain; let us rather confidently and trustingly live the story with Jesus our Lord, so that we may also live the glory with him as well.

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