HOMILY PRONOUNCED  BY  MONS. DIEGO  MONROY PONCE; GENERAL AND EPISCOPAL VICAR OF GUADALUPE, RECTOR OF THE SANCTUARY.
PALM SUNDAY

April first of 2007

WHERE CHRIST IS, THE KINGDOM IS
Saint Ambrose

Dear brothers, we start the Holy week of the year with the Palm Sunday. The rhythm of the Lent took us little by little but dramatically to this week that starts with the solemn entrance of Jesus to Jerusalem, to give his life (in this week) for the salvation of the humanity. At the end of this week, the contemplation of the paschal mystery will take us to the joy and gladness of the salvation done by Christ through his death and resurrection.

Today, we see in the account of the Gospel of Luke how the opposition of the heads of the Jews precipitated themselves in an impressive way at the moment at which Jesus determined to arrive at this city to fulfil that was written in the prophets.

In fact, brothers, in the first reading of this Sunday, the prophet Isaiah presents to us the figure of the servant of Yahweh (called like this). This mysterious figure is firm in the suffering, in the humiliation and in the apparent failure. He is the attentive disciple of the God´s word that with his attentive and obedient listening, he becomes able to animete to others. He is, then, the prophet and the teacher of wisdom who is trusted in that the intentions of God are a gift that will become itself in salvation for all the people. My dear brothers, this prophecy describes admirably and precisely, and it anticipates the passion of Jesus with which (with an attitude never equalable of obedient love in the fidelity to God and the solidarity with the people) he assumed in the most complete freedom the mission assigned by his Father.

The letter to the Philippians presents to us a hymn in honor of Christ, which was probably intoned in the primitive Christian communities, and that Saint Paul inserted into this epistolary document. In this hymn is sung the mystery of Jesus Christ who did not cling to his divine rank, he liberates himself of his divine condition that belonged to him by nature, he humiliated himself for obedience and love, until the degree of assuming the condition of suffering slave until the vile death of the cross. The obedience of Jesus was the cause of our salvation and with this way he compensated the disobedience of Adam (it means the disobedience of each one of us) which brought us the death, for that reason the first christians (according to this hymn) saw this act of humility of the God´s Son like the cause of the glory that He owns as Lord of everything.

In the Gospel of Saint Luke we find an account, which wants to ilustrate the sense of the cross in the mystery of the salvation. It is not only the resurrection, which reaches the salvation to us, but this one also involves the passion of the Redeemer who gave his life for us. The passion and death of Jesus (as we can understand today) is part of the good new of the Father’s love (it means of the Gospel).

First, we have contemplated to the Lord in the agony (agoné=fight) of the orchard, as the fight of a martyr that prays to the Father to be able to achieve the fulfillment of his destinity. Jesus in his passion made everything that he had taught: always, making the will of the Father as the unique one who gives sense to the existence.

Jesus also presents himself as a martyr (witness) disposed to give testimony of the truth and of the fidelity to God before the Sanhedrin, it means, before the religious authority, and before the political authority, when he could bear with humility and patience (as the servant of Yahweh) all kind of injuries, blows and insults (an increasing hatred).

Jesus was like that all his life, that´s why he also presents himself in the same way in that moment, he shows mercy and compassion before suffering and the weakness of his friends when he exhorted them to stay firm and vigilant and he prays for them in moments of weekness, even interceding for his enemies.

Brothers, the reading of the Passion is an opportune introduction to the contemplation of the mercy of God for us. We have to let that the Spirit moves us to let us move not to the compassion, but to a deep sense of gratitude and adoration before the mystery that was manifested in the cross and the resurrection of our Brother, Lord and Teacher; and may the Virgin, our sweet Lady who stayed always next to Jesus, teaches to us to be always in permanent adoration before this mystery of love.

AMEN