Homily for Passion Sunday 2009

Recently, I had a wedding during Lent. It is not the usual custom to celebrate weddings in Lent. However, at this recent wedding, I was reminded that the fasting and penance of Lent is not meant to make us sad and gloomy. It is to help us grow spiritually. The very word Lent means "spring". In the northern hemisphere it is Spring now. Spring is a time when new shoots start to grow after a long cold winter. For the Christian, whether in the north or the south, Lent is the time when the new shoots of faith become obvious in those preparing for Baptism at Easter. It is the time when our own faith is renewed.

At the wedding in question the parents of the bride and groom wore purple. The colour of the Lenten season. It was a very simple wedding. There were no bridesmaids or grooms men as the couple decided that was an extravagant expense. The Gospel they chose was from the "Sermon on the Mount" in Matthew's Gospel (Matthew 5): "How happy are the poor in spirit". Here, too, I reflected, was a new life of discipleship beginning in the Sacrament of Marriage. So even though it was in Lent this wedding kept very much to the spirit of the season.

This Sunday we read two gospel passages. We have heard before the procession of Palms the gospel of Jesus entry into Jerusalem. Riding on a colt in the manner of a royal entrance Jesus was hailed "son of David". The people cried out as we do at every Mass "Hosanna in the highest heaven" spreading branches and coats on the road.

Then in the Passion reading from Mark's Gospel the soldiers mock Jesus as they call him "King of the Jews". They put a fake robe of royalty on him and a false crown made of thorns. So much for your kingship, they are saying. Who do you think you are! Then Jesus begins the sad procession to Calvary.

For us who listen he is ironically the greatest king of all as he emptied himself as Paul says in the second reading, "becoming as a slave, obedient even to death on the cross for our sake."

So let us listen with our hearts this week to this story which is at the heart of our life of discipleship. Because we are in the story, we who have died with him in baptism that we might also rise with him.

Fr Graham