Conflicting experiences and how to deal with them: a Palm Sunday Homily

Here are the Scripture Readings for the Liturgy today.

When I was a kid, I was really looking forward to Palm Sunday because it was the only day of the year when I could hold a palm leaf and play with it in Church, and during the long Gospel of the Passion, I got to say loudly in Church: "Crucify him," and no adult was going yell at me.  Now that I have grown, Palm Sunday continues to attract me but for a very different reason: there is something in the Liturgy that resonates with me about life experience. 

If you pay close attention to the 2 Gospels, you will see they present conflicting experiences.  At the beginning of Mass, the Gospel presents a Jesus who is on top of the world: the people praised Him, admired Him, and wanted Him as their king.  But minutes later, the Gospel presents a Jesus who is at the rock bottom of human experience: everyone despised him, rejected him and wanted to get rid of him.

Christ and his experience are relevant because there are conflicting experiences in our personal lives and in our world, and without Him, we just don't know how to deal with them:

-         We basically know what we are supposed to do but we keep failing to do it.  We basically know what we are not supposed to do yet we do it anyway.

-         We know certain lifestyles and behaviors would lead to the addictions that enslave us yet we still entertain those lifestyles and those behaviors.

-         We know we receive everything from God’s goodness yet we still act as if they are only ours to keep and we are reluctant to share.

-         We love and invest everything on our children but at some point in their lives they might choose a different path that leads to harm and destruction.

-         The people and organizations that are supposed to give us security and love sometimes cause us confusion and division.  And yes, the Church could at times be one of those.

-         In this Christian country where we are living, somehow there are still policies and practices that are totally un-Christian

-         In this world, many innocent people are still suffering and many wicked people are still thriving.

So spend a few minutes of silence to reflect on the ironies of our personal lives, of our family and community, and of our nation and the world. 

We reflect on them not to fall into depression and hopelessness.  We reflect on them to notice that we keep running around seeking for the relief of such tension, but painfully realize nothing on this earth can really do it.  We reflect on them to recognize we still need to look upon Jesus to learn how he would deal with ironies and conflicting experiences in his life.  

In the 2^nd Reading, we see how he does it: self-emptying. Christ empties Himself, 2000 years ago as well as today.  He is the Divine who is worthy of our worship.  But instead of the attitude of self-entitlement, he chooses the self-emptying for the sake of love: taking on the fate of humans in their best time as well as in their worst time.  He lays down his life for his beloved.  He does that to show us that the only way to redemption is his way: self-emptying, laying down one's life for the beloved.

What can I do today and tomorrow to give myself more for the people I’m supposed to love?