In Agony Until the End of the World
Gospel Commentary for Palm Sunday

By Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap

ROME, MARCH 14, 2008 (Zenit.org).- In the course of the entire liturgical year, Palm Sunday is the only occasion, besides Good Friday, in which the Gospel of Christ's Passion is read. Not being able to comment on the whole long narrative, we will consider two episodes: Gethsemane and Calvary.

It is written of Jesus on the Mount of Olives that he began "to feel sorrow and distress. Then he said to them, ‘My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch with me.'" This is an unrecognizable Jesus! He who commanded the winds and the seas and they obeyed him, who told everyone not to fear, is now prey to sadness and anxiety. What is the reason? It is all contained in one word, the chalice: "My Father, if it is possible, let this chalice pass from me!"

The chalice indicates the whole mass of suffering that is about to come crashing down upon him. But not only this. It indicates above all the measure of divine justice that corresponds to men's sins and transgressions. It is "the sin of the world" that he has taken upon himself and that weighs on his heart like a boulder.

The philosopher Pascal said that "Christ is in agony on the Mount of Olives until the end of the world. He should not be abandoned during this whole time."

He is in agony wherever there is a human being that struggles with sadness, fear, anxiety, in a situation where there is no way out, as he was that day. We can do nothing for the Jesus who was suffering then but we can do something for the Jesus who is in agony today. Every day we hear of tragedies that occur, sometimes in our own building, in the apartment across the hall, without anyone being aware of it.

How many Mount of Olives, how many Gethsemanes in the heart of our cities! Let us not abandon those who are there within.

Let us now take ourselves to Calvary. "Jesus cried out in a loud voice: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' And Jesus cried out again in a loud voice, and gave up his spirit."

I am now about to pronounce a blasphemy, but then I will explain. Jesus on the cross has become an atheist, one without God. There are two forms of atheism: the active or voluntary atheism of those who reject God, and the passive or suffered atheism of those who are rejected (or feel rejected) by God. In both forms there are those who are "without God." The former is an atheism of fault, and the latter is an atheism of suffering and expiation. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, about whom there was much discussion when her personal writings were published, belongs to this latter category.

On the cross Jesus expiated in anticipation all the atheism that exists in the world, not only that of declared atheists, but also that of practical atheists, the atheism of those who live "as if God did not exist," relegating him to the last place in their life. It is "our" atheism, because, in this sense, we are all atheists -- some more, some less -- those who do not care about God. God too is one of the "marginalized" today; he has been pushed to the margins of the lives of the majority of men.

Here too it is necessary to say: "Jesus is on the cross until the end of the world." He is in all the innocent who suffer. He is nailed to the cross of the gravely ill. The nails that hold him fast on the cross are the injustices that are committed against the poor. In a Nazi concentration camp a man was hung. Someone, pointing at the victim, angrily asked a believer who was standing next to him: "Where is your God now?" "Do you not see him?" he answered. "He is there hanging from the gallows."

In all of the depictions of the "deposition from the cross," the figure of Joseph of Arimathea always stands out. He represents all of those who, even today, challenge the regime or public opinion, to draw near to the condemned, the excluded, those sick with AIDS, and who are occupied with helping some of them to descend from the cross. For some those who are "crucified" today, the designated and awaited "Joseph of Arimathea" could very well be I or you.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

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Father Raniero Cantalamessa is the Pontifical Household preacher. The readings for this Sunday are Isaiah 50:4-7; Philippians 2:6-11; Matthew 26:14-27:66.

Palm Sunday recalls Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem is meant to speak to our journey of faith. What makes this procession so powerful is that it starts with hysteria and ends in death. And that tells us something we need to hear.
Matthew’s account of the Passion is very tough on the Jewish leaders. His entire Gospel has been preparing the hearer for this. Matthew shows that even though the Jews had the New Moses right in front of them, they were unable to recognise him because he didn’t fit their expectations of the Messiah. The crowd in Jerusalem receive him like a pop star, acclaiming him as their own. By week’s end the Chief Priests and elders manipulate the crowd’s enthusiasm to force Pilate to execute Jesus. And throughout it all, during the adulation of the crowd, their change of allegiance to Barabbas and at his trial, Jesus hardly says a word. In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus’ silence is deafening.

In the journey of faith we should always be on our guard against being part of a manipulated crowd. The unchecked enthusiasms of a crowd can carry us away to places, people or things we would not ordinarily choose and should not embrace. If we are vulnerable, a gifted guru through his or her version of eternal life can whip us up into a frenzy. We only have to look at the power of the media and advertising to see how susceptible we are to becoming a slave to fashionable ideologies, dress codes and what and who is in or out. Every time we buy something because someone else has it or because we convince ourselves that our wants are really our needs, the crowd has won. The story of Passion Sunday is that manipulation of a crowd, even by legitimate authorities, can be the beginning of spiritual death. Hype often distorts priorities, blurs good judgement and can choose expediency over integrity.

So what’s the remedy to being manipulated, to regaining a sense of what really matters, to standing up against the crowd for the values we know are right? Jesus shows us in Matthew’s Gospel. It starts with silence. It’s being a contemplative in a manic world and praying for the courage to dissent from the crowd’s hyped-up madness.

As we move into Holy Week, this annual rite of passage for our faith, may we model our lives on Jesus in every way by creating the silence we need in our lives to sort out our priorities, by using silence powerfully in a world that loves words but has very little to say about our meaning and destiny and allowing our sacrificial love, even to the point of death, to do all the talking.

thanks Cappie...may this Holy Week be truly life-transforming for each one of us.