Palm Sunday, Year C-2016

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Courage! Jesus leads us

Leading fearful disciples, who are also slow to understand, Jesus heads towards Jerusalem to face with courage his painful fate.

Courage does not mean not agonizing at the specter of suffering and death. Jesus is in such agony that his sweat becomes “like drops of blood falling the ground.” He thus indicates also that he does not want suffering or death either for himself or for others.

To take courage is to pray fervently in our anguish, that the Father’s will be done, while we ask at the same that he takes away from us the bitter cup. Even the fallen musters enough courage and strength when he strengthens, after turning back from his fear and weakness, his brothers and sisters. The same can be said of Joseph Arimathea and the women behind him who take upon themselves the responsibility to prepare spices and perfumed oils. It does no matter now that like the rest they stood at a distance during the crucifixion.

They have courage, those who, despite their fear of the unknown, go out of their comfort zone anyway to make their own Jesus’ simple lifestyle. Courageous as well are the disciples who, knowing quite well that they are not greater than their Teacher, do not turn turn back in the face of inevitable torture perpetrated by those who pluck other people’s beards.

These disciples now understand that “there is nothing good that does not meet with opposition,” to quote St. Vincent de Paul (SV.FR IV:12). They thus recognize that it is not God who makes passion and death inevitable, but rather human beings’ pride and insatiable thirst for power, wealth, people’s adulation.

Hence, in contrast to the wicked, Jesus’ true followers strive to prove themselves before God through their courage and patient endurance in tribulations, through their thirst for justice. They go about doing good, announcing the Good News to the poor, curing every disease and illness, combating, to the best of their ability, suffering and death, constantly, at every turn, in towns and villages, in the outskirts of big cities.

And that is how they live with courage the Paschal Mystery that the Sacred Banquet recalls. Subjected to death, even to death and death on the cross, made necessary by human greed, they surely and inevitably receive at the same Banquet a pledge of future glory.

Passion of Christ, strengthen us.


March 20, 2016

Palm Sunday (C)

Lk 19, 28-40; Is 50, 4-7; Phil 2, 6-11; Lk 22, 14 – 23, 56


VERSIÓN ESPAÑOLA

Valor tengamos: Jesús nos lidera

Liderando a discípulos temerosos y tardos en comprender, va Jesús hacia Jerusalén para enfrentarse con valor a su destino penoso.

Tener valor no significa no agonizarse ante el sufrimiento y la muerte. Jesús se angustia tanto que se le baja «el sudor a goterones, como de sangre, hasta el suelo». Así indica también que no quiere ni el sufrimiento ni la muerte ni para sí mismo ni para los demás.

Tener valor es insistir en orar en medio de nuestra angustia que se haga la voluntad del Padre, al mismo tiempo que pedimos que se aparte de nosotros el cáliz amargo. Consigue reunir valor y fuerza aun el caído que, recuperado del miedo y la debilidad, conforta a sus hermanos. Lo mismo se puede decir de José de Arimatea y las mujeres detrás de él, quienes asumen la responsabilidad de preparar aromas y ungüentos. Ya no importa si, como los demás, éstos se mantuvieron a distancia durante la crucifixión.

Valientes son quienes, no obstante su temor a lo desconocido, se salen, sin embargo, fuera de su zona de confort, para hacer suyo el estilo de vida sencillo de Jesús. Tienen valor los discípulos que, sabiendo que no son más que su Maestro, no se echan atrás ante torturas inevitables perpetradas por uno que les mesa la barba a otros.

Ya comprenden estos discípulos que «no hay ningún bien que no sea combatido», por citar a san Vicente de Paúl (SV.ES IV:124). Por eso, reconocen que no es Dios quien hace inevitables la pasión y la muerte, sino la sed insaciable de poder, riqueza, adulación popular de parte de los hombres.

Así que, a diferencia de los soberbios y codiciosos, los verdaderos seguidores de Jesús, se esfuerzan por acreditarse ante Dios por su valor y su constancia en las tribulaciones, por su sed de ser justos. Pasan haciendo el bien, evangelizando a los pobres y sanando toda clase de enfermedades y dolencias, combatiendo, lo mejor que puedan hacerlo, el sufrimiento y la muerte, a cada momento, a cada paso, en las aldeas y los pueblos, en las periferias de las grandes ciudades.

Y así viven con valor el misterio pascual que se rememora en el Sagrado Convite. Sometidos incluso a la muerte y una muerte de cruz, hecha necesaria por la codicia humana, reciben segura e inevitablemente una prenda de la futura gloria.

Pasión de Cristo, confórtanos.


20 de marzo de 2016

Domingo de Ramos (C)

Lc 19, 28-40; Is 50, 4-7; Fil 2, 6-11; Lc 22, 14 – 23, 56