Palm Sunday Processional
Mark 11:1-10
1. Did some of the people waving palms and shouting “Hosanna” expect the Messiah to have power and to dominate? Could they have recognized Jesus as someone who reawakened hopes, understood misery and healed their bodies and souls? Which group would you have liked to be with?
First Reading
Isaiah 50:4-7
1. We understand Jesus as the subject of this reading. Could it apply to others too? Name some people, like John Lewis, who have spoken on God’s behalf and have “set their faces like flint” when confronted by injustice. What injustice do you feel strongly about? Is there anything can you do to help make it right?
2. “Morning after morning he opens my ear that I may hear.” What am I hearing now? The cries of starving children? Of the planet in crisis? Of racial injustice?
Second Reading
Philippians 2:6-11
1. “Agape love” is selfless and free from self-concern and self-preoccupation. It includes conversion, vulnerability, search for justice, and suffering. Explain Jesus’ love for us in terms of agape. What would the world be like if everyone had some of this kind of love?
2. Discuss Javier Melloni’s statement:
“The will of God is the divinization of every creature; and it was to bring about this divinization that the one who was in God and who was God, emptied himself in order to participate in our human condition and transform it from within.”Can you agree with such a statement?
Gospel
Mark 14:1-15:47 or 15:1-39
1. The woman “wastes” expensive perfumed oil on Jesus. Does this relate to God’s self-wasting love on humankind? How is the Eucharist a continuation of Christ’s self-giving love for us? Does your busy schedule allow time to “waste” on love?
2. What was it about Jesus’ death that amazed the centurion and made him say, “Truly this man was the Son of God”!
Today’s Gospel shows us, immediately after the death of Jesus, a splendid icon of amazement. It is the scene of the centurion who, upon seeing that Jesus had died, said: “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mk 15:39). He was amazed by love. How did he see Jesus die? He saw him die in love, and this amazed him. Jesus suffered immensely, but he never stopped loving. This is what it is to be amazed before God, who can fill even death with love. In that gratuitous and unprecedented love, the pagan centurion found God. His words—Truly this man was the Son of God!—“seal” the Passion narrative.
The Gospels tell us that many others before him had admired Jesus for his miracles and prodigious works, and had acknowledged that he was the Son of God. Yet Christ silenced them, because they risked remaining purely on the level of worldly admiration at the idea of a God to be adored and feared for his power and might. Now it can no longer be so, for at the foot of the cross there can be no mistake: God has revealed himself and reigns only with the disarmed and disarming power of love.
Pope Francis homily for Palm Sunday
March 28, 2021
