THE PASSION OF OUR LORD - YEAR A - HOLY WEEK

Procession of the Palms - Matt 21: 1-11

Readings at the Mass -  Isaiah: 50: 4-80, Psalm 21, Phillipians 2:6-11

GOSPEL -  Matthew 27: 11-54

brooklynmuseum.org - Jaques TISSOT - OUR lORD'S VIEW FROM THE CROSS

MUSIC -  Grace Church Halewood

Deacon Tom Copyright © 2022 -2026 
I  sincerly hope that no copyright has been infringed. Pardon is sought and apology made if the contrary is true, and a correction will be made in any future Hompods.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Sunday and the Passion of the Lord. On this day the church records the entrance of Christ the Lord into Jerusalem to accomplish his Paschal mystery. Accordingly, the memorial of this entrance of the Lord takes place at all this now.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Come now is the time to give your heart.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Jesus said to his companions, saying to go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find an house tied and a cold with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, The Lord has need of them, and he will send them immediately. This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell the daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on an ass, and on a coat the fall of an ass. They went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the ass and the coat and put their garments on, and he sat thereon. Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him shouted, Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the eyes. When he entered Jerusalem, all the city was astired, saying, Who is this? And the crowd said, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee. Without which the sorrowful mysteries of Holy Week, I suppose, could never take place. Cardinal Basil Hume described mysteries as profound truths beyond the grasp of our unaided intellects, yet yielding their riches to the humble and prayerful. Mysteries require the freedom of the individual to meditate on them before coming to spiritual decisions based on their truths. As Saint Pope John Paul II explains, freedom this freedom is an essential prerequisite for loving God and giving oneself to God. He says, Mary made her unconditional decision to say yes and bears witness to this freedom when she says, Behold the handmaid of the Lord. A decision which he explains in the thirteenth station of the cross resulted in the unfathomable anguish and grief when the body of Jesus, her son, is taken down from the cross and laid on the mother's arms. In our mind's eye, we glimpse again the moment when Mary accepted the message brought by the angel Gabriel. In the Archdiocese of Liverpool, Odo for 2026, for the celebration of Mass and Divine Office, opposite the details for Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, which obviously I looked up recently, and I discovered an image is there taken from James Tissot's painting of What Our Lord Saw from the Cross. And I must admit I hadn't seen it before. The original is found in Brooklyn Museum and is one of 365 watercolours painted by Tissot for his collection called The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Pope Francis said that from this cross Jesus experienced total abandonment in the situation he had never before experienced in order to be one with us in everything. The view from the cross presents us with an imaginary scene using the eyes of our blessed Lord to enable us to see his view of Calvary and the faces of the people standing there who had one week earlier been singing Hosanna to the Son of David, spreading their garments on the road in front of Jesus as he entered Jerusalem, humble and mounted on an ass. Now there are different emotions on the faces of the onlookers. Look at Mary. A sword has pierced her heart as she meets the eyes of her child. The eyes she had first looked into on that morning in Bethlehem are now full of pain. Perhaps she is thinking of the time when Jesus was presented in the temple and she first heard the warning from Simeon, who seemed to know that there was a dark veining of sadness in the mystery of the incarnation. From the eyes of Jesus, we can also see his accusers. Their faces tell a different story. Did they have a smirk of satisfaction? They had what might be called the worldly understanding of destroying supposed opposition as the answer rather than reconciliation and living in peace. Did the gloating and infantile jeering create a moment of despair as Jesus cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Pope Francis asked the question we all think as we meditate on the mystery of the Passion. Why did all this take place? Thankfully, he provides an answer. It was done for our sake, to serve us, so that we can remember that we are not alone when we feel that God is not responding. Holy Week provides the opportunity for us to recall how much Jesus wants to respond. On Thursday we have Jesus getting wrapped in a towel and kneeling to wash the feet of his disciples. What regard he has for all of us. In the painting, it's only the feet of Jesus we see still on the cross. Who will wash his feet now? On the same Monday, Thursday, we had the very first time that Jesus gave us the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. Each Mass now is a celebration of his body and blood. Colonel Basil Hume said that the Mass is both a sacrifice and banquet, and that it gives meaning to our daily lives, to our loves, our pain, our endeavours. From the cross in the painting by Cecil, all we can see Jesus will receive after this is a jug of sour wine and a spear that will be used to draw out his last drop of blood after he refuses to drink. Another person to look for in the Macabre Tableau of Calvary is Mary Magdalene, who has been described as the apostle of the apostles. Composer Tansy Davis has written A Passion from the Perspective of Mary Magdalene, a musical piece which will be performed in the Edinburgh Festival during the summer. It will perhaps notice how she is kneeling totally bereft at the feet of Jesus, full of grief, her face torn in pain at what she's viewing. And what's there from our Lord in what our Lord saw from the cross is he thinking of the next time that she sees him that she'll not recognise him thinking is the gardener. She's specially chosen to relay the first message of Christ's resurrection. What an honour. But our devotion began and it ends with our Blessed Lady, recalling at the foot of the cross we can see her again, with two other women and with Saint John present at the culmination of the great mystery of the redemption. She suffered with our Lord and is quite rightly now known as the refuge of sinners, the comforter of the afflicted, the help of the sick. Mary reflects the love of God which we need the most from this mother of sorrows. She's the one who turns to her son for intercession when we feel any sense of abandon abandonment and ask for her prayer, her pleading on our behalf. She is touched as our souls are touched by the love of our Lord. And Pope Francis reminds us that because of her response at the Annunciation, we can all now hear Jesus say to each one of us, courage, open your heart to my love. You will feel the consolation of God who sustains you.