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Passion Sunday
16 March 2008
Praised be Jesus Christ! Now and forever!
Dear Friends in Christ,
Passion. When we hear this word, most of us think first of deepest love…either the erotic feelings of lovers or of the single-minded devotion to some beloved work. But the original meaning of the word is not love; it is suffering. This is why we speak of the suffering of Christ as His passion, and this is where we see the connection between the meanings of suffering and love: Christ was willing to suffer for us only because He loves us, and the depth of His love is revealed most fully in His suffering and death.
From the Fifth Sunday of Lent through Good Friday, the readings and prayers appointed for Mass begin to speak more and more of Christ’s passion, and for this reason, the final two weeks of Lent are often called Passiontide. From today through Good Friday, sacred images are shrouded in purple as a sign of our sorrow for contributing to Christ’s passion by our sins, and over and over during Passiontide, the sacred liturgy prepares us to confess our part in the betrayal, torture, and murder of the Way, the Truth, and the Life. On Palm Sunday (now also known as Passion Sunday) and again on Good Friday, we will read together the accounts of Christ’s final hours and the arrival of The Hour for which He came into the world. Together we will shout: Crucify him! Crucify him! And we will look into the Holy Face expecting rejection and condemnation, and instead we will find only forgiveness and infinite love.
In these last days of Lent, the Church calls to us with ever greater urgency to repent of our sins and believe in the Gospel, and by meditating on the passion of our Savior, we can be led to proclaim the tender mercies of God with the authentic joy of those who know they are forgiven. The first of the two Prefaces of the Eucharistic Prayer for the Passion of the Lord takes up this theme: “Father….the suffering and death of your Son brought life to the whole world, moving our hearts to praise your glory. The power of the Cross reveals your judgment on this world and the kingship of Christ crucified. We praise you, Lord, with all the angels and saints in their song of joy…”
We must each confront the mystery of evil in our hearts, but we do that as Christians only by confessing that the Paschal Mystery of the passion, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ cast out Satan’s power and redeems us from slavery to sin and death.
Father Newman