Dear friends,

Before Vatican II, the reading of the Passion, which we hear today, was greeted with absolute silence. No homily. Even the concluding acclamation: “The gospel of the Lord,” was omitted. So, on a day like this Palm Sunday, I sometimes feel that the most eloquent response to the word of God we have is silence because even the best of homilies could be a distraction from the deep meditation in which many of us find ourselves at the end of the story of the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. But then also, I am aware that a good homily might be useful to direct and focus our meditation in the right direction.

This reminds me of a story I read of little Johnny who was failing all his exams in the public school until his parents decided to send him to a good Catholic school like Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic School. At the end of the year, Johnny came out top of the class. When his parents asked him what made him change so dramatically, Johnny replied, “You see, the moment I walked into that new school and saw that guy hanging on the cross, I knew that the people here were dead-serious, so I decided not to take any chances.”

The crucifix might have helped Johnny to improve his scores, but clearly, little Johnny misunderstood it. The man on the cross is not there to scare the hell out of little boys but to show them how much he loves them. He is not there to show them what would happen to them if they misbehaved; he is there to show them that he has already paid the penalty for their sins. He is not dying on the cross for what he has done but for what you and I have done because he loves us. He died for us.

Perhaps many of us have heard this phrase so many times that it might have now lost its appeal. For us to hear this message again today as if for the first time, allow me to share the story of a man who literally died for the misdeeds of his brother. You might have heard it before, but here it goes…

Two brothers lived together in the same apartment. The elder brother was an honest, hard-working, and God-fearing man, and the younger a dishonest, gun-toting, substance-abusing rogue. Many a night, the younger man would come back into the apartment late, drunk and with a lot of cash, and the elder brother would spend hours pleading with him to mend his ways and live a decent life.

But the young man never paid any attention. One night, the junior brother runs into the house with a smoking gun and blood-stained clothes. “I killed a man,” he announced. In a few minutes, the house was surrounded by police, and the two brothers knew there was no escape. “I did not mean to kill him,” stammered the young brother, “I don’t want to die.” By now, the police were knocking at the door. The senior brother had an idea. He exchanged his clothes with the blood-stained clothes of his killer brother. The police arrested him, tried him, and condemned him to death for murder. He was killed, and his junior brother lived. He died for his brother.

Can we see that this story of crime and death is basically a story of love? Similarly, the story of the suffering and death of Jesus, which we heard in the Passion, is basically a story of love – God’s love for us. This will culminate a few days later into his painful passion, death, and resurrection. How should we respond to this? Well, how would you expect the junior brother to respond to the death of the senior brother? We would expect him to respond with GRATITUDE. Gratitude to his generous brother should make him turn a new leaf and never go back to a life of crime. He would be a most ungrateful idiot if he should continue living the sort of life that made his brother die. Gratitude should make him keep the memory of his brother alive. No day should pass that he should not remember his brother who died for him. Finally, if the dead brother has a wife and children, we should expect the saved brother, out of gratitude, to love and care for them.

What God expects from us today is gratitude – gratitude strong enough to make us hate sin of every shade and color and strong enough to make us translate our love of God into the love of all of God’s people. Have a blessed Holy Week and a Happy Easter, OLMC! I love you, and please, do not postpone your love for me and for each other!

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