PASSION SUNDAY/PALM SUNDAY

Passion is an almost hijacked word in terms of meaning and associations. Exposed as we are in film to torrid love-making scenes and violent responses to wrong doing, we associate passion with intense and overwhelming emotion. The betrayed spouse slaying the unfaithful mate is accused of a crime of passion.

In these scenarios the one ensnared in the “passion” temporarily loses control and acts to avenge the hurt and outrage caused by the betrayal. When we come to this Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week we come face to face with Jesus’ passion.

Different to a crime of passion or the passion of romance novels and films, the passion of Our Lord is not something that robs him of his freedom to act in full control of what he is doing. Yes it is true that from the time of his arrest in the garden of Gethsemane, through his trial, torture and execution he is a prisoner. But this imprisonment is only physical. As we listen to the reading of the passion from the different gospels, be alert to the self-possessed way Jesus is portrayed. No words of complaint about unfairness are placed on his lips. He acts not reacts in each situation regardless of who it is he is talking to.

Passion in Holy Week terms resonates with origin of the word: suffering and endurance. Comparison words are “patience”, “patient” and “impatience” which speak of enduring circumstances often not of our choosing of suffering be it physical, mental or emotional.

As we walk with Our Lord this week do put yourselves literally in his shoes. What happened to him has happened to so many before him and after him. It happens now in our midst in sickness and suffering which befall us. Sometimes we know the reason, sometimes we don’t. What our union with Christ allows us to do, is to “suffer” whatever it is but not be crushed because He is with us.

Wherever you celebrate Easter let it be a time of grace where you see more clearly God’s mercy, the countless blessings you have and for which you did nothing to possess and the ways in which goodness can flow from you to others.

Fr Adrian Farrelly