Palm Sunday Closing Thought

How do we ever read through that Gospel from today and not walk away unchanged?

At the Mass I attended in Virginia today, we sang:

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

…

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?…

Were you there when they pierced him in the side?

…

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Yes, you know, I was.

I am.

It should cause me to tremble.

It did.

It does.

(Will it Monday, midday? Am I making all my work and deeds His — dying to self?)

Listening to the Gospel today and reading the crowd’s part frankly is all too shamefully real. Through actions and inactions, they’re my sins.

Having just been in the Holy Land makes it all the harder for me to not walk away examining all the ways the Passion is all too brutally personal.

Let’s pray for one another — that we all take these next days seriously and make them the heart of our lives. For by His stripes we are healed. What awesome love. What wondrous love.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.