Reflection for Palm Sunday

Saint Luke had the gift, through the Spirit, to reveal to us and to teach us through the account of Christ’s Passion that Jesus did not shy away from the will of the Father, but went all the way to the end of his mission despite contradictions, hatred, and death. Jesus took your condemnation, our condemnation. Yes, it is you and I who condemned the Master of life.

The good thief said to his friend, “Do you not fear God?” — that same question is being asked of you and me. Yes, do you not fear God when you choose to silence His voice within you out of fear of listening to it? Have we not smothered Him with our worldly views and ways, even though He told us, “You are not of this world” (John 15:19)?

Indeed, “Crucify Him!” was the cry of that people among whom He healed, fed, and raised the dead — and yet, they felt no shame, no fear in saying “Crucify Him!” What cruelty, to have reached such a point — the creature condemning its Creator! Oh man, what have you become? Sacrilege! Is this not the abomination of desolation? The world turned upside down! Do you realize that this people of long ago is you and me today, still shouting “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

We cry “Crucify Him!” when we reject God’s love and instead beg for human love, which leads to psychological, moral, and physical death, with forgiveness neither given nor received. Disordered affections that paralyze us and distance us from God, holding each other captive.

He loved us so much that “He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Crucify Him! — when we flee God’s authority by refusing to listen and obey through the different mediations and circumstances He allows in our lives. Instead, we choose to listen to our own voice, feed our ego, follow our own path that demands less sacrifice to satisfy our desires and will. Did He not say: “If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24–25)? Have we not made obedience a curse from God and stripped it of His Spirit? Crucify Him!

Crucify Him! — when we have made science our god, our reference for everything, the one that dictates what we should or shouldn’t do. So where is the place and role of the Spirit, the Paraclete, sent by the Father, announced by Jesus, who will teach us all things and remind us of all He has said? (John 14:26)

Crucify Him! — when we have replaced God’s truth with the world’s truth, with its laws and norms that dehumanize man and give him the right to do whatever he wants, without limits — where we have turned truth into lies, integrity into hypocrisy, the sacred into the profane, endurance into ease — just to name a few.

Saint John reminds us: “Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6).
We have allowed too many doors of the world to open within us. Let us weep over our sins like the women of Jerusalem, and let the King of the universe enter into each of our lives to close all those doors so that He may reign in us forever.

May we open ourselves each morning to let Him awaken our ears, that we may receive the language of disciples and never again crucify Him in our daily lives.