Sunday, March 29, is Passion (Palm) Sunday (Year B). Holy Thursday is April 2. Good Friday, April 3, is a day of abstinence and fasting.

 

Mass Readings

Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalms 22:8-9, 17-20, 23-24; Philippians 2:6-11; Mark 14:1-15:47 or 15:1-39

 

Our Take

The Passion starts with Judas, who clearly sold his soul by selling Jesus. Judas brooded about money and seemed to silently object to much that Christ did. Finally, he “went off to the chief priests to hand him over to them,” says the Gospel.

If we are not careful, we can do the same thing. We might crowd Jesus out with activities or distractions. We might focus on superficial religious practices that make us feel holy enough externally that we don’t have to confront what Jesus really wants from us internally — handing him over and accepting what the world offers in his place.

Peter sold Jesus for much less: He simply chose himself over the difficulties life with Jesus presents.

First, he fell asleep when the Lord told him to stay awake and pray with him. Then he kept his distance from him as Jesus was captured and refused to acknowledge him during his trial.

We do that, too. We get tired of Jesus always wanting us to “watch and pray.” We take our rest. And then, when Jesus needs us — when our faith needs a witness — we sometimes don’t have the fortitude to say a word, because fortitude comes from watching and praying.

Judas and Peter are like us because they are religious guys who nonetheless went wrong. But the best people in today’s Gospel are the bad guys who went right.

First was the woman with the “alabaster jar of perfumed oil, costly genuine spikenard.” She didn’t count the cost of sacrifice, she just poured out her love on Jesus. She walked right up to him, in “hostile territory,” surrounded by men who rejected her, and made a show of her love that no one could ignore.

Jesus once chastised Peter, “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

He cannot say that to this woman. She is not thinking according to the world’s ways — she isn’t counting the cost of the perfume or sizing up the occasion, deciding if this is the right moment — she is just simply and honestly responding to the value of Christ with a gift.

The centurion who helped kill Jesus was not thinking as human beings do either.

He watched Jesus cry out in agony and breathe his last breath. But watching the way he died, the centurion said, “Truly, this man was the Son of God.”

This Holy Week, we can learn to follow in the footsteps of the woman with the alabaster jar and the centurion.

We can acknowledge Jesus’ place in our lives forthrightly, without worrying who it will offend. We can learn to stop measuring love out in dribs and drabs and give ourselves to Christ completely.

And by watching the way he dies, we can discover once again that he is truly the Son of God.

Tom and April Hoopes write from Atchison, Kansas,

where Tom is writer in residence at Benedictine College.