Palm Sunday Year C - 20/3/2016 - Gospel: Lk 22:14 - 23, 56
Personal mystery
Each person is a mystery and no one can fully understand a human's life mystery. No one knows us better than ourselves and yet we from time to time wonder about our own existence in this world. The journey of searching for the meaning and purpose of life is only completed when we face our Maker who out of love creates and sustains us and at the end of our earthly journey calls us to Himself. In this sense a human life is similar to a picnic, a family organizes to go out and then return home before dawn.
Our time on earth is a picnic begins at birth and return to heavenly home at dawn of our life. It is a picnic for us to enjoy and to wonder about the mysterious world surrounding us. We relate to the world through loving relationship and kindness and act of charity that makes our picnic worthwhile. It not only gives us joy and also unfolds for us the true meaning of life, a life of giving love and receiving love.
People often confuse between love for the world and true love. Wealth and power magnetize people love for the world while the glorification of true love shines from the cross of Jesus; the former often paralysed those who love it while the latter always loves us because it is God's nature. God loves us even when we run away from God and God with hands outstretched patiently waiting to welcome us back whenever we return. Without the cross there is no true love because true love requires sacrifice.
To deny the existence of God is a betrayal of God's love for us and it makes our life poorer. Those who open their heart in searching for God's love will find it. Those who search for the meaning of life outside of their heart take a long way and often be lost. The key to unlock the mystery of life is having faith in Jesus. Faith helps to open some mystery of life because Christ alone has the master key. Christ alone carried the cross and through that cross Christ made everything anew in Himself. To have faith in Jesus is to see life's problems in the glory of the cross. Seeing life in that way we come to understand true love requires sacrifice and thank Jesus for His passion. The death and resurrection of Jesus reveal the mystery of life and the starting point is the heart because our heart is a sanctuary of God's love.
Jesus entered the holy City and the world praised Him. Their praise didn't last long as we see the Passion unfold on the following week. The same Christ they praised now being rejected, bruises all over and blood flows and wounds of both feet and hands and finally on His side. The world thinks they paralysed Christ but three days later the thorn on His head is replaced by the Hallow after His resurrection, not before. His glorification lasts for eternity.
Our time on earth is a picnic begins at birth and return to heavenly home at dawn of our life. It is a picnic for us to enjoy and to wonder about the mysterious world surrounding us. We relate to the world through loving relationship and kindness and act of charity that makes our picnic worthwhile. It not only gives us joy and also unfolds for us the true meaning of life, a life of giving love and receiving love.
People often confuse between love for the world and true love. Wealth and power magnetize people love for the world while the glorification of true love shines from the cross of Jesus; the former often paralysed those who love it while the latter always loves us because it is God's nature. God loves us even when we run away from God and God with hands outstretched patiently waiting to welcome us back whenever we return. Without the cross there is no true love because true love requires sacrifice.
To deny the existence of God is a betrayal of God's love for us and it makes our life poorer. Those who open their heart in searching for God's love will find it. Those who search for the meaning of life outside of their heart take a long way and often be lost. The key to unlock the mystery of life is having faith in Jesus. Faith helps to open some mystery of life because Christ alone has the master key. Christ alone carried the cross and through that cross Christ made everything anew in Himself. To have faith in Jesus is to see life's problems in the glory of the cross. Seeing life in that way we come to understand true love requires sacrifice and thank Jesus for His passion. The death and resurrection of Jesus reveal the mystery of life and the starting point is the heart because our heart is a sanctuary of God's love.
Jesus entered the holy City and the world praised Him. Their praise didn't last long as we see the Passion unfold on the following week. The same Christ they praised now being rejected, bruises all over and blood flows and wounds of both feet and hands and finally on His side. The world thinks they paralysed Christ but three days later the thorn on His head is replaced by the Hallow after His resurrection, not before. His glorification lasts for eternity.
Written by Fr Vũđình Tường
St Francis Xavier Catholic Parish
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane Australia
St Francis Xavier Catholic Parish
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane Australia