Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion (B) – March 24, 2024

St. Paul – Lyons, KS

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

GET ALL MATERIALS FOR “RECONNECTING…” INCLUDING HOMILY HANDOUTS, DEEPER DIVE VIDEOS, AND DISCUSSION GUIDES HERE.

Holy Week

As I’ve mentioned before, today, Palm Sunday, the Church tells the priest to be brief—and even gives the option of not preaching at all today, and instead just observing a period of silence! Why? Seems like an important day, but we just get to skip it if we want? Well, no. The Church is getting at is this: “Let the words and actions of the liturgy speak for themselves. Let people live, truly live, enter into what is being memorialized this week. Don’t explain it away!”

In other words, this week, Holy Week, the events and liturgies and Scripture readings—this week is not meant to be a purely mental exercise, some nice things to think about, or like watching a good movie again, no. This week is meant to be an existential something, something we enter into in a very real way, something we live alongside Jesus Christ, concretely, tangibly. And this all stems from our second reading, from Paul’s letter to the Philippians.

In that reading, Paul writes the great Christological hymn, one of his most famous writings. But right before it, he tells us why he writes it. This almost never happens, that Paul tells us what he means before he tells us something! But we must be so thick that Paul is like, “Here’s what this means, and now I’ll tell you.” And Paul says this, “Have within yourselves the same mind as Christ”—and then continues with this great Christological hymn, “Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God…emptied himself, took the form of a slave…humbled himself, became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” But notice! What is Paul’s point, what’s he saying? “Have within yourselves the same mind as Christ.” It’s a command! It’s written in the imperative! Paul is saying, “Do this!” Well what? Do what? “Have within yourselves the same mind (phroneite) as Christ.” “Mind” isn’t the normal word we would use, but a peculiar Greek word: phroneó. And phroneó is a word that literally refers to the parts around your heart. But what it’s getting at metaphorically is that blend between the way we think and the way we act; how our interior dispositions are expressed outwardly in our actions. In other words, Paul is telling us, commanding us, to think differently, to have a change of mind and heart (why?) so as to live and act as Christ himself did. And what is that? Well, as Holy Week invites us, we are to live the prayer of the heart, live our lives as a total offering to God, a total gift of self to God the Father. Tthis is the essence of prayer. Here is this last week of “Reconnecting…”, here in this Holy Week—the secret is placed before us: to experience true prayer, we must truly offer ourselves with Jesus Christ.

You remember back to our third week of “Reconnecting…”, we defined prayer, the experience of true prayer as God’s work in me to which I respond, to which I attend. So prayer is God’s work, God’s doing it! Our part is that composure of heart, attending to what God is doing. And there are a lot of methods that help with this. For example, we need a regular practice of prayer (10, 20, 30 minutes every day)—how’s that going? Harder than you think, huh? We also need to practice silence. We talked about petitionary prayer, hearing God, the prayer of confession. So a lot of methods! But have you noticed that it isn’t automatic? That there is a kind of battle? Exactly. This phroneó that Paul is talking about, this change of heart and then putting it into practice isn’t just automatic, it’s hard! It takes real, concrete action. It’s not just nice thoughts.

Liturgical Prayer & Prayer of the Heart at Mass

And that leads to this one final method of prayer we need. There is one more kind of prayer that we need—and that is this prayer of self-offering, of uniting our life to Christ. And while this can happen daily, at home, at work, in the car—the place it happens most perfectly is at the Mass.

Whenever we come to Mass, what is happening is not just singing some songs and saying some prayers, and then Fr. Michael saying something to keep us interested, and then he does the stuff over at the altar and we receive communion and go home, no. In this prayer that we call the Mass, the center of everything is the altar; here at the heart of the church is the altar. And on the altar, Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross is made present. And what is Jesus doing on the cross? On the cross, Jesus is offering everything to the Father. Everything.

Ok, for us, in prayer—where is the center of everything? It is the heart. God isn’t interested in words and songs and whatnot; He’s interested in us, our heart. And so that’s what we offer him: our very selves, our heart. And we can do this every day, to be sure—and we should! Just think, how would it change your life is before anything you did, you said, “God, I am offering myself to you through this”? It would change everything! The annoying things you have to do each day at work—all of a sudden become offerings to God. The sacrifices for your kids—not just reasons to resent your kids, but ways to glorify God. And even, it helps us avoid sin! Hard to sin if you’re telling God that you’re offering him sin, right? So that’s awesome! Every part of our day can become prayer.

But the highest, the most important way to offer God our lives—it is through the Mass. We need to learn to pray the Mass better. Because I know there is a temptation for it to be ritualistic—just say the words, do the things. But it’s not mean to be ritualistic! It’s mean to be deeply, deeply personal. In fact, when everything changed at the Mass in the 60’s, it changed in order to foster a more active participation of the people. And not “active” in the sense of singing more songs or saying more words, no. Active in the sense of our full engagement, our full attention. I mean, it is easy to feel like you’re just sitting there, just a spectator; we attend Mass like we’re watching T.V. But have you ever actually tried to fully, actively, and consciously participate at the Mass? Like, you see me up here—if I stood sloppily, would that be weird? To give our attention at Mass is difficult, it take practice. John Paul II, he said that you’re not just passive bystanders, you’re active in “listening to the readings or the homily, or following the prayers of the celebrant, and the chants and music… [S]ilence and stillness…are in their own way profoundly active.”

So for example, when I say, “Let us pray.” What do you do? Do you gather everything into your heart, quiet yourself, and raise your mind and heart to God? When the lector says, “A reading from the book…” What do you do? Do you listen attentively? During the Gospel, do you face the ambo, listening the proclamation as if Jesus himself were up here speaking? When I say, “Lift up your hearts” Do you do that? When Mass ends and I say, “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life” Do you? Do you take that instruction seriously?

This is my point: in a particular way, we are called to enter into this week with a renewed attentiveness, having within ourselves the same mind and heart as Jesus. But this is something we’re called to do every day. Do we live every day with this phroneó of Jesus? Do we live that way? Holy Week gives us a concrete way to do that, so that we can continue that each and every day.

So during this Holy Week—enter in, live it. That’s my invitation. The Church proposes very concrete, tangible experiences. Come to the Penance Service, go to Confession. Spend time in Adoration during our last week of 40 for 40. Attend all of the Masses and services for the Triduum—Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil. Walk the Way of the Cross with us. Increase your fasting, and prayer, and almsgiving. Why? So that we can live this phroneó—the same heart as Jesus, the same life lived entirely as an offering to God. Why? Because (as we celebrate this week), this is the kind of life that leads to glory, to life, to fulfillment, to resurrection.