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Dear Friends in Christ,

After hearing the story of our Lord's entrance into Jerusalem, and then the events which led to His death, it seems out-of-place, and even presumptuous to say anything further. It is like receiving a blow to the head, and then trying to analyze one's own stupefaction. We cannot hear of these events, and then calmly analyze them, as if we have received a whole vision, a complete picture, a finished tale. No - we ourselves are fractured by the rapid blows of these events - and our minds' powers are stymied by the onrush of tragedy following triumph, of betrayal following sacrifice, of death following life - we are swept along with our Lord's final story, which like the inexorable tide of a stormy sea, washes away, and strips bare, what had seemed before, to be stable, fixed, and permanent.

But our Lord had warned the Apostles about the troubles to come, as He warns us:

Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a swordÉand he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

And we understand, or begin to understand, that the cross is the sword, severing our ties to the past, cutting out of us any illusions we might have about a religion of ease and accommodation Ð and the sword is the cross, upon which, we must look for the meaning, not only of our Lord's life, but of how our lives fit into His - for only by accepting His Passion and death as a blueprint for our own lives, can we hope to live our Faith, can we hope to open ourselves, as His wounds were opened, and let pour forth from us, the love that was born in His blood Ð the love that the world and all in it, must have, if there is to be salvation.

In this awareness of truth, and truthÕs challenge, we may not stand apart from those men and women who greeted our Lord when He entered Jerusalem. When there was nothing to fear, they greeted Him and proclaimed His Kingship. But by the end of the week, these same men and women were either crying out to Pilate for the Lord's death, "Crucify him, and let his blood be on us and our children!Ó, or they were not to be found. And the Apostles, who came as royal attendants, surrounding our Lord like princes, escorting Him, they thought, into the scene of His greatest triumph - by week's end, they had abandoned Him to the cruelties of Rome, fleeing into the night, confused and frightened, and in his darkest night, Peter, the chosen head of the Twelve, denied the Lord, not once, but three times. All those who had listened to the wisdom of our Lord, all those who had felt the kind caress of His gentle spirit, all those who had received life and health and whose faith had been praised by the simple word of His love - none were there, at the end, but a handful of women, His mother, and but one of His own men, the men He had trusted above all others.

What a dismal, sorry conclusion this would be if the story stopped there. But the story does not end with these human failures Ð with these human failures the story begins. For it is human failure Ð the failure of Adam and Eve, the failure of the Chosen People, and our failure, that is to be repaired, redeemed, and forgiven on the Cross Ð repaired, redeemed, and forgiven, by the sacrifice, by the love and the life our Lord will offer.

We know the real ending - we live in the last age - the age that proclaims what our Lord has done, awaiting His second coming with the hope of glory in our hearts.

But during this week, let us follow the example of the saints Ð let us put aside, until Easter Sunday our certainty of the future - let us surrender our minds and hearts to the great drama of almost two thousand years ago Ð the great drama about to unfold before us in our sacred liturgies. Let us be those people of whom we read and hear - let us be amazed at the humility and generosity of our Lord, when at the Last Supper, He will wash our feet, and give us to eat and drink of His Body and Blood - let us gaze with the deepest sorrow on this sorrowful Lord, as He falls beneath the weight of the Cross, is hoisted up, is nailed to its beams, and dies upon the ultimate cry of any and every man, "Into thy hands, O Father, I commend my spirit" - and let us, with every fearful expectation in our hearts, make our way, through the night, to the tomb where Jesus lay - and in the light of dawn, hear, with Mary and the women, the words announcing our redemption, "He has been raised - he is not here - he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you."

Dear friends, the Gospel give us these memories - but it is for our hearts to give them life - our faith to make them real and present, our hope to reveal their meaning, and our love, to bring us to our knees, and to thank the Lord, to thank Jesus Christ the Son of God, for what He did, for what He does, to make us worthy.

Let us pray, on this day that begins the holiest of days, and ask the Holy Spirit, to fill us with a spirit of repentance, and a spirit of deep feeling, and to help us live the events we are about to commemorate, so that in the dawn of Easter, we may sing worthily unto the God who saves us: "Hosanna to the Lord of LifeÉBlessed is the kingdom which is to comeÉHosanna in the highest!"

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