Palm Sunday, 2010

 Today we began the Mass with a procession. Perhaps it never quite comes off! But it’s meant to recall Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.
 In Jesus’ day, I believe, to approach Jerusalem from the direction of Bethany and the Mount of Olives was, in modern terms, to be ‘wowed’. Suddenly the city, in its splendour, burst upon the sight.
 Jesus’ processional entry into Jerusalem ended in the Temple. Our brief imitation ended here in church. But the real end, for both of them albeit in different ways, is surely the Gospel of the Passion we have just heard. It is the Cross. It is the tomb. Joseph of Arimathea and the women from Galilee are the ones who followed to the end. Joseph “put him in a tomb”, and the women “took note of [it] and the position of the body.” And they went home and rested. And when they visited the tomb again, it would be empty.
 Today the whole Church sets out in procession - the procession of Holy Week. It’s a journey with Christ - to the Upper Room, to the Garden of Gethsemane, to the Court of the Sanhedrin, the Praetorium of Pilate, Golgotha, the tomb, and on, to the places where the disciples will see Christ risen. It’s the journey of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil, Easter Day and beyond. It’s the culmination of the 40 days of Lent and entry into the 50 days of Easter. It’s a procession to the centre of our faith - to its liturgical, sacramental re-enactment - to the renewal of our baptismal promises - and so, please God, to our personal and corporate reinvigoration. This is the real procession we are invited to join.

 Most of the time the Liturgy, however much we value it, is just one thread in the cloth of our lives. Perhaps not even a very conspicuous one, perhaps on the underside, rather than over.. Even in a monastery it’s far from being everything. But this week, and at the turn of the next, it’s as though this thread suddenly comes out on top and arrests the eye. Or it’s like a stream usually hemmed in by gorges suddenly coming to an open plain, and broadening, filling it. Easter is an annual occasion of public Christian witness. But most of all, it’s a chance to let the bright thread of Christ colour our drabness. It’s an opportunity to drink of the life-giving stream that flows, so often hidden, through human history, flows from the Throne of God and flows in us, for all our muddying of it, since our baptism.
 There is a procession underway. We’re summoned today to join it. It heartens us monks here, of course, when our church is full. But whether here or elsewhere, do please come, dear brothers and sisters, to as much of the liturgy of Holy Week, the Triduum and Easter Week as you can. If you’re sure, you “can’t”, please double check that “can’t”. The Church bids us attend Mass on Sundays and Holydays of Obligation. She actually commands us to do so. But Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil are not of obligation. It’s no sin to miss them. Just a crying shame! It’s missing a chance to colour the grey and quench the drought in my life. If I put Easter at the centre of my year, I am putting Christ at the centre of my life. And so the whole of my life - family life, social life, work and activities, griefs and frustrations, recreations and enjoyments - all of it will have more meaning, be coloured and watered by him, and bring brightness and refreshment to those around. So here or elsewhere, please come. And follow the liturgy at home as well. At Easter, the Lord passes through our lives. Let’s not pass him by!

 End of harangue! Back to the procession. This journey of Jesus didn’t begin at “Bethphage and Bethany, close by the Mount of Olives”. It didn’t even begin in Galilee with Jesus’ baptism around the age of 30. It didn’t even begin when the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary and Jesus was conceived. Where and when did it begin? Let’s offer one answer, the answer of the 1st reading at the Mass of Maundy Thursday. This procession began in Egypt, on a moonlit night some 1300 years before Jesus came to Jerusalem. It began when the Hebrew slaves of the Nile Delta were huddled in their shacks, the lintels daubed with blood, eating the Passover Lamb, staff in hand and sandals on their feet. It began when the Lord passed by and opened a passage for them. It began, in a word, with the Exodus.
 When Jesus went up to Jerusalem, to die and to rise, to pass at Passover time from this world to the Father, he was completing that long procession through the centuries that began in Egypt. He was completing the Exodus. 1300 years before the Jews went up from slavery to the land of Promise. Some 500 years before, after 70 years of exile by the rivers of Babylon, they had gone up again, a second Exodus. And then three times a year  - Passover, Pentecost, Booths - from Palestine or the diaspora, they would go up to seek God’s face in Jerusalem. And all this going-up of Israel, this following through of the Exodus, what was it? A first return to God. A first undoing of our post-Eden, post-Fall estrangement, the beginning of the prodigal son’s return to the Father’s house. The few - Israel - represented the many - humanity. Always, though, incomplete, unfinished, less than definitive. And now today, in the events we commemorate this week, Jesus, the ultimate wandering Jew (wandering, though, with a purpose), the One representing the many, goes up, taking all of us with him. And through him the definitive Exodus, the great journey of return to the house of the Father, is now accomplished. He passes from this world to the Father, over the Red Sea of death, and opens a passage to everlasting life for us.
 Where did our procession begin? Baking bricks for Pharaoh on the banks of the Nile; if we think about that, it’s not a bad symbol for much in our lives. And where does it end? In something far better. As living stones of the Temple of the living God, the Body of the risen Christ. In the heavenly Jerusalem, where we are free.
 So let us go up with Jesus, on his exodus. Let’s go up with the disciples, with the donkey even, with Mary especially. Let us go up with all those who’ll be baptised this Easter. Let’s go up by way of the sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Communion, sorry for our sins and wanting union. Let’s go up, like Jesus, carrying those who we love. Let’s go up through Holy Week to Easter, so that he may easter in us, and our lives be simpler and more generous, more like his.
 Where did our procession begin? Let’s say, best of all, in the Father’s merciful heart, the beginning of everything. And where does it end? There too. In gratitude and joy. So let us go up!

          Fr. Hugh, O. S. B.