Palm Sunday of The Lord’s Passion
To live as resurrected people
… Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver …When it was evening, he reclined at table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, “… one of you will betray me.” … While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and … said, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins…” Mt 26,14-27.66
The Passion week starts. From today all the divine protections which Jesus enjoyed during
his public life are going to be lost. The plan of salvation, which began with the call of Abraham, is at the height of his achievement. It is a wonderful story which God the Father thought and which the Holy Spirit suggests to all the actors who partecipate to it with different roles. In the scene of today, Jesus, the central character, remains alone. All leave the stage, even the disciples, beginning with Judas who betrays him, abandon him. Only the Father and the Holy Spirit are close to him. Why did Jesus, left alone on the stage of the history, offer his life and does not something to prevent the death; on the contrary, he approaches it ? This is the answer and, while writing, we ask to the Holy Spirit to allow us to reach an in-depth understanding of it: Jesus has offered himself in sacrifice to defeat the sin of the world, to save us sinners and make us be born again to a new life. God the Father, by offering his Son, and Jesus, agreeing to be offered, acted as the professor Nicola, who, more than thirty years ago, took out from the little head of Maria Carmela that terrible tumor which was leading her to death, still being a child and restored her to the life. That one was the most terrible and, by the same time, the largest and most beautiful event of our family history. Since then another story started for us, because we have seen at first hand that the Lord, via the professor Nicola, has performed a miracle of love. What happened at that time in our family is the image of what the Lord did in the Passion week: he has removed the evil, the sin from the world and he gave to all the men the opportunity for a new life. However, as Maria Carmela had, then, to take care for two long years to make the evil not reappearing, so Jesus also prescribed to the people the necessary care not to be devastated again by the sin, instituting the sacraments of the baptism, of the eucharist and of the reconciliation. Whenever we are going to receive the sacraments, we cause the sacrifice of the Lord in our lives to be timely and effective. It is the way which Jesus Christ left to us to live, together with him, as resurrected people.