A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 8, n. 18)
Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, Year C – March 28, 2010 *
“Paschal Journey”
BIBLE READINGS
Lk 19:28-40 // Is 50:4-7 // Phil 2:6-11 // Lk 22:14-23:56
(N.B. Series 8 of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY includes a prayerful study of the Sunday liturgy of Year C from the perspective of the Second Reading. For reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year C based on the Gospel reading, please scroll up to the “ARCHIVES” above and open Series 2. For reflections based on the Old Testament reading, open Series 5.)
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
The rising of the sun – its passage from darkness to light - is a symbol of “Passover”. It is a moving away from the heavy shadows of the night to the lambent benediction of a dawning day. It connotes the triumph of light and grace over the shadow of sin and death.
The center of our Christian life is the “Paschal Journey” of Christ – his passage from this world to the Father through his passion and death on the cross. Christ’s paschal sacrifice is the supreme expression of his filial obedience and of a love totally and freely given to the Father.
When Christ made the “Passover” from death to life, he was not alone! He took with him the whole creation and the entire redeemed family of God. We should therefore trust in Christ, who is there to strengthen us as we leap out of darkness toward the light of grace.
Our contact with Christ in the liturgy and sacraments obliges us to incarnate his “Paschal Journey” in our life. It induces a process of conversion – of configuration to Christ. I remember the testimony of a lady whose son – the only child - was killed by a drunken driver. Hatred ate her up. But the words of the Gospel began to weigh in her conscience. She knew that God was asking her to forgive. She began to see the young man who killed her son as a person in need of love and healing. Hate is a destructive thing, but love is always bigger. The formerly unforgiving lady finally embarked on a “Paschal Journey” from hate to love.
With the Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, we begin the Holy Week in which we focus more intently on the heart of the mystery of salvation – the Paschal Mystery of Christ - his passion, death and resurrection. As a faith community, we join Christ in his entrance to Jerusalem so as to accomplish the Father’s saving plan on our behalf. United with Christ in his “Paschal Journey”, we experience more deeply that it is indeed a mystery of dying and rising, of humiliation and exaltation, of sacrificial death that leads to eternal life, of defeat transformed to astounding victory!
The “Paschal Journey” of Christ who suffered, died and rose for our salvation is presented in a vast sweeping and comprehensive perspective by Saint Paul in his canticle on God’s holy servant (Phil 2:6-11). One of the most moving and beautiful sketches of Christ’s mission and person, this passage is the Easter mystery in a nutshell. Jesus, in becoming man, divested himself of the privilege of divine glory (doxa). His self-emptying reached its climax at his passion and death on the cross. But God highly exalted him, and gave him the name that is above every name. As God exalted Jesus, so Christians who suffer and die for the faith are to be raised to new life when the exalted Lord returns.
The life of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, who was martyred on March 24, 1980, exemplified a disciple’s “Paschal Journey” with the Servant-Son Jesus Christ. A Franciscan friar Octavio Duran, who was a young seminarian accompanying Romero in some of his pastoral visits and taking many photographs of him, describes a significant moment in Romero’s “Paschal Journey” (cf. “Archbishop Romero: Friend, Pastor, Prophet” in MARYKNOLL, March 2010, p. 18-22).
We were only a little way from the small church in the community of San Antonio Los Ranchos in Chalatenango, El Salvador, when the car carrying San Salvador Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was rudely stopped by Salvadoran army soldiers. They made us get out of the vehicle and searched for evidence to accuse us of being subversives, as happened to so many other religious and innocent people during that time. Romero was going to celebrate the corn festival with a Mass in the community of San Antonio.
At the end of the 1970s, when respect for human rights was eroding at an accelerating rate in my country, the Salvadoran government began a campaign of repression against the Catholic Church, accusing it of insurgency and killing priests, catechists and lay faithful. The people complained about the abuse to the legal aid office at the Archdiocese of San Salvador, and Archbishop Romero denounced the cases of abuse each Sunday at Mass.
On the steep road to the church in San Antonio, the local people, who had gathered to greet the archbishop with religious hymns, witnessed the affront the archbishop suffered. They watched as soldiers searched him thoroughly, along with those who were with him: myself, Father Fabian Amaya, two other Church workers and Salvador Barraza, who was Romeo’s chauffeur and friend. The soldiers did not find anything to incriminate the prelate, but the real reason for the operation was more to show the army’s power and intimidate the population. At that moment, being with the archbishop and dozens of witnesses gave me some degree of security that we wouldn’t be killed. Ironically, some of the many soldiers who were also waiting for Romero had climbed the trees, like Zaccheus to see Jesus, although perhaps not necessarily to seek conversion.
I was extremely nervous, in part because of a small camera hanging around my neck. I was afraid they would take it from me or remove the film and keep me from documenting another day in the life of the archbishop.
After long interrogations, we continued on to the church. The people received the archbishop happily, with hugs and music. But Romero’s uneasiness after what had happened was obvious. In the church, the archbishop, trembling and his voice cracking, asked that the Mass be held outside. He was concerned that if something worse should happen, such as shooting, the people would be able to escape into the open countryside.
Suddenly, while still in the church, a little boy and girl went up to Romero. She hugged him and the boy took hold of the cross the archbishop wore around his chest. It was like a signal that everyone needs a Simon, the Cyrenian who helped carry Jesus’ cross, in our own lives to help us carry our crosses. I took a photo at that moment that has circulated around the world in books, magazines and newspapers. In the photo, a soldier can be seen carrying his rifle – the nails of crucifixion in that era. This happened at the end of 1979, a few months before Romero was assassinated. Thirty years have passed since I took that picture with the camera that the archbishop bought for me himself so I could capture images for the archdiocesan newspaper Orientacion.
I never imagined how my life would change by meeting Archbishop Romero in 1977, when I was only 21 years old. The assassination in March of that year of Father Rutilio Grande, whom I never knew in life, was a reprisal against those priests committed to defending human dignity and social justice. (…)
My friendship with Archbishop Romero was the result of a fortuitous occurrence. After hearing me read at a Mass, the director of Catholic radio in San Salvador offered me – after a test – two hours of work a night at the radio, that is, when the radio program wasn’t knocked off the air by attacks against its transmission towers or the buildings. One day, during a boring philosophy class, I got an unexpected call from the radio. They told me I had to interview Archbishop Romero for his weekly program. I had never before conducted an interview, but the archbishop, who was passionate about the communications media, advised me to leave my nerves outside the sound booth. This was the first of many weekly interviews I did with Romero and the beginning of a friendship that lasted physically until his brutal assassination on March 24, 1980, and that has lifted me up spiritually for more than three decades. Romero appreciated my desire to learn, gave me the confidence to become a person who is sensitive to human suffering and engendered within me the spiritual values that now are part of my life as a Franciscan friar.
I asked Romero if the interviews for the radio could be a part of my pastoral work since as a seminarian I had to do a pastoral ministry in a parish at a time when the Bible was a symbol of terrorism, when the small Christian communities were denounced before local authorities and many of the faithful turned up dead with signs hung around their necks that read “traitor to the nation”. He told me that social communication was also a ministry. After that, I accompanied him on some of his pastoral visits on the weekends and took many photographs of him.
The radio and camera allowed me to better know this friend, pastor and prophet: the friend who said he did not fear death, the pastor who stayed and protected his flock, and the prophet who decried the injustice and oppression that the Salvadorian people suffered, a prophet who not only denounced but also announced that there was a just God whose justice was eternal. Thirty years after the death of Archbishop Romero, it is not only I who remember him but millions of people around the world.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
Do we trust in Jesus as the one “who comes in the name of the Lord” and the means by which there is “peace in heaven and glory to the highest”?
Are we totally united with Christ in his role as the Suffering Servant? Do we consciously and faithfully embark on a “Paschal Journey” with Christ, through the cross to the Easter glory?
Do we participate fully and joyfully in Christ’s self-emptying? Do we imitate him who humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross? Do we believe that in Christ we shall be exulted?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
Leader: Almighty and merciful God,
we thank you for the Holy Week,
a special time of grace.
Help us to delve into the meaning
of the Paschal Mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection.
Grant that we may enter with him
into the “Jerusalem of suffering and salvation”.
Teach us to participate fully in Christ’s “Paschal Journey”.
As we tread the way of the cross,
turn our mourning into joy,
our humiliation into glory,
our shadows of death into the radiance of eternal life.
Bless us, loving Father.
Let our “Hosannas” to the messianic king
be soon transformed into the joyful “Alleluias” of Easter!
We love you and serve you,
now and forever.
Assembly: Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.” (Phil 2:8)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
ACTION PLAN: Pray that our “Paschal Journey” may be animated by deep trust in the love of God and Christ’s redeeming power. By your acts of justice and peace, alleviate the pain of those who suffer. Be an instrument of divine compassion for the poor and the needy
ACTION PLAN: That we may truly experience the meaning of “Paschal Journey”, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR: A Weekly Pastoral Tool (Year C, vol. 6, # 18).
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US