Fwd: The Pope last Palm Sunday
Sherry Capati
From: scapati <sca...@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 17, 2008 5:04 PM
Subject: What did the Pope want to say last Palm Sunday
To: sca...@gmail.com
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Papal Homily for Palm Sunday
To Recognize God We Must Abandon the Pride That Blinds Us
VATICAN CITY, MARCH 16, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of
the homily Benedict XVI gave at today's Palm Sunday Mass in St.
Peter's Square.* * *
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Year after year the Gospel passage for Palm Sunday relates to us
Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. Together with his disciples and a growing
throng of pilgrims, he ascended from the plain of Galilee to the Holy
City. Like steps in this ascent, the evangelists have transmitted
three of Jesus' announcements of his passion, using this at the same
time to sketch the interior ascent that was also occurring in this
pilgrimage. Jesus is on his way to the temple -- toward the place
where God, as Deuteronomy says, desired to "establish the dwelling" of
his name (cf. 12:11; 14:23). The God who created heaven and earth has
given a name, he has made himself available to be called upon, indeed,
he has almost made himself touchable by men. No place can contain him
and nevertheless, or precisely because of this, he himself gives
himself a name, so that he, the true God, can personally be venerated
there as the God in our midst.
From the story of the 12-year-old Jesus we know that he loved the
temple as the house of his Father, as his paternal house. Now he comes
again to this temple, but his journey goes beyond it: The ultimate
goal of his ascent is the cross. It is the ascent that the letter to
the Hebrews describes as an ascent to the tent that is not made of
human hands, to the presence of God. The ascent to the presence of God
passes through the cross. It is the ascent to that which is "love to
the end" (cf. John 13:1), and is thus God's true mountain, the
definitive place of contact between God and man.
During the entry into Jerusalem the people pay homage to Jesus as the
Son of David with the words of Psalm 118 [117] of the pilgrims:
"Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of
the Lord! Hosanna in the highest of heavens!" (Matthew 21:9). Then he
arrives at the temple. But there, where there should be the space of
the meeting between God and man, he finds people selling animals and
money changers who use the place of prayer for their business. It is
true that the animals being sold there are destined for sacrifice in
the temple. And because it was forbidden to use coins in the temple on
which there were representations of the emperor, which were in
conflict with the true God, it was necessary to exchange them for
coins that did not bear idolatrous images.
But all of that could have been done elsewhere: The place that it had
now appropriated was supposed to be the atrium for the pagans. The God
of Israel was in fact the God of all peoples. And even if the pagans
did not enter, so to speak, into the interior of revelation, they
could nevertheless, in the atrium, associate themselves with prayer to
the one God. The God of Israel, the God of all men, was always also
awaiting their prayer, their seeking, their invocation. But now, the
atrium was dominated by business, business that had been legalized by
the competent authority, an authority which, for its part, had a part
of the merchants' earnings.
The merchants were acting in a correct way according to the order that
was in force, but the order itself was corrupt. "Greed is idolatry,"
says the letter to the Colossians (cf. 3:5). It is this idolatry that
Jesus encounters and in the face of which he cites Isaiah: "My house
shall be called a house of prayer" (Matthew 21:13; cf. Isaiah 56:7)
and Jeremiah: "But you have made it a den of thieves" (Matthew 21:13;
cf. Jeremiah 7:11). Against the badly interpreted order Jesus, with
his prophetic gesture, defends the true order of things that is found
in the Law and the Prophets.
As Christians, all of this must make us think today: Is our faith pure
and open enough that, beginning from it, the "pagans" -- the persons
today who are seeking and have their questions -- can also intuit the
light of the one God, can associate themselves with our prayer in the
atriums of faith and by their seeking perhaps become worshippers? Does
the awareness that greed is idolatry also reach our heart and our life
practices? Do we not perhaps also allow idols to enter even into the
world of our faith? Are we disposed to let the Lord purify us again
and again, allowing him to chase out of us and the Church what is
contrary to him?
In the purification of the temple, however, there is more going on
than the struggle against abuses. A new moment in history has been
foretold. What Jesus had announced to the Samaritan woman in regard to
her question about worship is now beginning: "The hour has come, and
is now here, in which the true worshippers will worship the Father in
spirit and truth; because the Father seeks such worshippers" (John
4:23). The time in which animals were sacrificed to God has ended.
Animal sacrifice had always been a miserable substitution, a gesture
of nostalgia for the true way of worshiping God. On the life and work
of Jesus the letter to the Hebrews offers as a motto a phrase from
Psalm 40 [39]: "You did not want sacrifices or offerings, but a body
you prepared for me" (Hebrews 10:5). The body of Christ, Christ
himself, enters to take the place of the bloody sacrifices and the
food offerings. Only the "love to the end," only the love for men for
which he gives himself totally to God, this is the true worship, the
true sacrifice. Worshipping in spirit and truth means worshiping in
communion with him who is truth; worshipping in the communion of his
body, in which the Holy Spirit unites us.
The evangelists tell us that in the trial against Jesus false
witnesses are presented and they claim that Jesus said: "I can destroy
God's temple and rebuild it in three days" (Matthew 26:61). Before
Christ hanging on the cross some scoffers refer to the same words,
screaming out: "You who will destroy the temple and rebuild it in
three days, save yourself!" (Matthew 27:40). John, in his account of
the purification of the temple, reports the true version of the words,
as they came from the mouth of Jesus himself. Responding to a request
for a sign, with which the Lord was supposed to legitimize himself,
Jesus says: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it
back up" (John 2:18 f.). John adds that, thinking again about this
event after the resurrection, the disciples understood that Jesus had
spoken of the temple of his body (cf. Jon 2:21 f.) It is not Jesus who
destroys the temple; it is left to destruction by the attitude of
those who transformed the place of meeting of all peoples with God
into a "den of thieves," a place of business.
But, as always from the fall of Adam, the failure of men becomes an
occasion for a still greater commitment on the part of God's love in
regard to us. The hour of the temple of stone, the hour of the animal
sacrifices had been left behind: The fact that Jesus now chases out
the merchants does not only impede abuse, but indicates the new action
of God. The new temple is formed: Jesus Christ himself, in whom God's
love comes down to men. He, in his life, is the new and living temple.
He, who passed through the cross and is risen, is the living space of
spirit and life in which the right worship is realized. Thus, the
purification of the temple, as the culmination of Jesus' solemn entry
into Jerusalem is the sign both of the incumbent destruction of the
building and the promise of the new temple; the promise of the kingdom
of reconciliation and love that, in the communion with Christ, is
established beyond every frontier.
St. Matthew, whose Gospel we hear this year, at the end of the Palm
Sunday account, after the purification of the temple, reports to
little events that have a prophetic character and once more make the
true will of Jesus clear to us. Immediately after Jesus' words about
the house of prayer of all peoples, the evangelist continues thus:
"The blind and the lame drew near to him in the temple and he healed
them." Furthermore, Matthew tells us that the children repeated the
acclamation that the pilgrims made during the entry into the city:
"Hosanna to the son of David!" (Matthew 21:14 f.).
To the trafficking in animals and the money exchange Jesus opposes his
goodness that makes well again. It is the true purification of the
temple. He does not come as a destroyer; he does not come with the
sword of the revolutionary. He comes with the gift of healing. He
dedicates himself to those who because of their infirmities have been
pushed to the end of their life and to the margins of society. Jesus
reveals God as he who loves, and his power as the power of love. And
thus he says to us what will always be a part of the true worship of
God: healing, serving, the goodness that makes well again.
And then there are the children who pay homage to Jesus as the Son of
David and acclaim "Hosanna." Jesus told his disciples that, to enter
into the kingdom of God, they had to become like children again. He
himself, who embraces the whole world, made himself little to come to
us, to direct us toward God. To recognize God we must abandon the
pride that blinds us, that wants to drive us far away from God, as if
God were our competitor. To meet God it is necessary to become capable
of seeing with the heart. We must learn to see with a young heart that
is not hindered by prejudices and blinded by interests. Thus, in the
little ones who with a similar free and open heart recognize him, the
Church has seen the image of the believers of every century, her own
image.
Dear friends, in this hour we associate ourselves with the procession
of the young people of that time -- a procession that passes through
the whole of history. Together with the young people of the whole
world let us go to meet Jesus. Let us allow him to guide us to God, to
learn from God himself how to be men. With him we thank God, because
with Jesus, the Son of David, he has given us a place of peace and
reconciliation that embraces the whole world. Let us pray to him that
we too become with him and beginning from him messengers of his peace,
so that in us and around us his kingdom will grow.
Amen.
[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]
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ZE08031605
2008-03-16
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Tina Avenido
4 months to go till WYD :-)
Sincerely,
Tina Avenido
0915.850.3505 | 895.3352