Passion for Reconciliation

Summary of a Fr. Gerry Creedon homily from Palm Sunday, April 9, 2006

"So they brought the donkey to Jesus and put their cloaks over it." Mark 11

DURING THE READING of the passion when you cried out, "Crucify him!" did not the words stick to your throats? When we hear how they mocked, taunted and tortured Jesus we are abhorred. The usual complacency with which we bless ourselves in the sign of the cross disappears when we confront the details of the passion. We cannot dismiss crucifixion and flogging as historical anachronisms. In the continued use of the death penalty in the Old Dominion and in the abuse of Abu Ghraib, history still lives.

A cruel death makes us question "Why?"

The Eucharist provides an interpretation. Before the Last Supper Jesus gave his last will and testament; "That they may all be one". Pope John 23 had the same prayer for his dying words. Jesus surveyed Jerusalem and wept: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I would have gathered you as a mother hen would her chickens under her wing but you would not."

"If I be lifted up, I will draw all people to myself....If I be lifted up, I will bring together all the scattered children of God." Paul proclaimed a cross that would break down the walls of enmity that separate.

In a time when some write about a clash of civilizations, when our nation is polarized over issues like immigration, in a church where one parish allows female acolytes, while others still bar them and in moment when families struggle to communicate, we need to heed anew the reconciling message of the passion.

The key to reconciliation is given in the triumphant entrance to Jerusalem. Jesus, our conquering hero enters his capital not on a warhorse or a chariot, but on a donkey, the poor man's beast of burden. In Paul's words, "He did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at. He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant". At another time Jesus explained; the grain of wheat remains a single grain, but if it falls to the ground and dies it produces many grains.

There is a shell of arrogance and pride that surrounds us. The path to reconciliation begins with the shedding of that shell. Humility is a requirement for the work of unification.