READINGS : Isaiah 62:10-12; Mt 21:1-11

HYMNS

All glory Praise and Honour
Psalm - God Full of Mercy
Taize - Bless the Lord my Soul
Harp Solo - Other musicians: Turlough Og MacDonoagh
Solo - Mother Behold thy Son
When I survey the Wondrous Cross
Lamb of God


Opening Prayer
Welcome to this (Morning) Worship for Palm Sunday. Whether you are at home, in hospital, or travelling the road, we hope you will join with us now as the week of the Lord's Passion begins.

With Christ we set our face now towards Jerusalem, that city over which Jesus wept. We offer our prayer in the words of the psalmist:

“Open wide the doors and gates. Lift high the ancient portals. The King of glory enters. Who is the King of glory? He is God the mighty Lord!

Hosanna in the highest. Blessed are you who come to us so rich in love and mercy.”

Reading:
In the Book of Isaiah, we listen to the prophet's call to Jerusalem to welcome the Messiah who comes within her walls not in pomp and circumstance, but servant-like and in the power of humility.

Is. 62:10-12

Hymn, “Bless the Lord My Soul”, several times, then fading as the Benedicite is read

Benedicite (Sr Maureen Flanagan, OP)

All you works of the Lord, O bless the Lord
To God be glory and praise forever.

And you, the days of our lives, O bless the Lord,

And you the brightness of these days, O bless the Lord,

And you the darkness of our nights, O bless the Lord.

And you, our waking and sleeping dreams, O bless the Lord,

And you, the mountain of our hope, O bless the Lord,

And you, the valley of our fear, O bless the Lord,

And you the fountain of our giftedness, O bless the Lord,

And you the beauty of our humanity, O bless the Lord,

And you, the springs of grace within us, O bless the Lord,

And you, the friendship bonds between us, O bless the Lord,

And you, the people young and old who listen to our teaching, O bless the Lord,

And you the people young and old who guide us, O bless the Lord,

And you, the tears of our compassion, O bless the Lord,

And you, the desire we have to heal the world, O bless the Lord,

And you, our struggle with our sinfulness, O bless the Lord,

And you the Spirit that makes us free, O bless the Lord,

Convert us O Lord,

Open our eyes to the vision of your will.


Refrain of Hymn repeated several times, “Bless the Lord My Soul…..”

Reflection

Recently I watched the film “Dead Man Walking.” It is based on the story by Sr Helen Prejean of her friendship with a prisoner on death row, in a Louisiana prison. It was first screened in Dublin on a Good Friday, a deliberately chosen day, it would seem, for it was at a profound level, a story of sin and suffering. It dramatized the human and divine possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation.

The anti-hero is Matthew Poncelet who awaits the death penalty for the brutal rape and murder of two young sweethearts. At frequent intervals, there are flashbacks of the crime, so we are spared nothing of its depravity. Sr Helen is asked to be his prison visitor, and soon becomes also his advocate and guide. She "walks" alongside him on death row, urging him to acknowledge the evil of his own past. She struggles on his behalf against the implacable legal system, and tries to engage the popular culture of revenge. She meets with the inconsolable parents of the young victims, and tries to take their anger on herself. But she comes to see that there is no easy consolation, no cheap grace for those caught in the space of contradiction and betrayal. And but it is in that space precisely where she encounters the Jesus of the gospel.

At one level, this film is about the death penalty, about the interrelationship between social deprivation, criminal violence and state punishment. Tensions between revenge and forgiveness, suffering and judgment are excruciating as the conventional dualism of darkness and light is undercut. The boundaries between sinners and sinned against are constantly shifting, and those who are involved are invited to reach out and to embrace more than they ever envisaged. The final drama in the execution room reveals that grace and disgrace are interwoven. Sin and reconciliation belong together. We face the shocking possibility that redemption is open to everyone. We recognize that the reconciliation which Christ has won for us on the cross comes to us so often through one another, as both sinned against and sinning.

In some Christian traditions, today is known as Palm Sunday. Listening to the gospel of Matthew, we become part of the crowd who go out to salute Jesus with palm branches as he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey.

Gospel, Mt 21:1-11

Reflection (contd)

As we cry out, “Hosanna to the King, Hosanna to the Son of David”, we know, as the original crowd did not, that hidden in our highest Hosannas the seeds of betrayal are stirring. Words of denial are already forming behind the noisy acclaim. WR Rodgers, an Ulster Presbyterian poet captures the moment for us:

Resurrection: An Easter Sequence, WR Rodgers

It was a deliberate moment, and O

Just in the nick and nook of time he came,

The timeless One, to reclaim us. Everything waited,

Everything peaked and pointed to his coming.

The morning rose up early, a tip toe of a day,

All was light and elastic, the birds chirping away,

The air chipped into buds. People were on their knees

With wonder, and some were weeping. And when at last He appeared

The Hero - such a hail of huzzas and hosannahs as sprang up!

Why the very house-tops rose to the occasion and broke

Their hush and hung out all their hearts' hoorays.

This was glory. Yet he knew the swings of men, and now

It was the old story.

The day too bright to last, the crowd too loud to stay.

Those who magnified him now would mock Him tomorrow,

Those who deified, defy. Already He saw

The shadow of Doubt, that pickpocket of conviction,

Move through the crowd. And far away and behind

Their fume and furore of glory he heard the door of doom slam;

meanwhile all was gay

And like a King he came triumphant up this way.

Reflection (contd)

This week we also encounter Judas, the betrayer of Jesus and we are invited to reflect on our own experience of betraying and being betrayed. Perhaps, the betrayal of Judas - damnable though it seems to us - shows Judas no worse than the rest of us. In fact Matthew tells us a little later that "Judas repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders.” Despite his repentance, Judas could not find it in his heart to go and be reconciled with Jesus, to accept that Jesus could forgive his sin. And neither can we pull ourselves up out of the bog by the hair of our own head. We cannot justify ourselves. And yet, in so many subtle ways, we make ourselves out to be right and just and think we can patch up our lost innocence. But, the truth of the matter is that grace lies on the other side of betrayal.

The crowd waving palms now would soon be calling for a crucifixion; Judas would betray Jesus with a kiss; we turn a blind eye to the obscene violence of war or collude in cruelty to children. So much pretence at ignorance or innocence. And yet, it is not humanly possible to live our lives, sinners as we are, without betraying one another. To live into the moral and tragic questions of our lives is to know, deep down, that we are all sinners in need of grace. Who has clean hands? There is no innocent place to start.

Is that not what the journey through Holy Week is about? Is it not about knowing that Jesus journeyed into death and dereliction, to show us that he loved us in our sinfulness; to convince us that no sinner was beyond the scope of his love. Paul tells us, "Christ died for us while we were yet sinners... When we were God's enemies we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son" 

(Rom. 5:8,10). As we begin the journey with Jesus through his passion and death, we glimpse the mystery - that where sin abounds grace does more abound. Again, the poet catches something of the paradox:



“An Easter Sequence” (contd).

O it was no day at all for doubt or for cloud,

The children ran cheering in front, the birds sang loud,

The very trees were bowed; and the butterfly leaves

Took off to greet him.

But he rode loftily by as if uninvolved in the glory, [could omit above lines]

And the ass, as if understanding the story,

Carried him sadly on to a tame

And lamentable conclusion.

To meet him with all and go with none

That was his doom who mediates and makes one

The split that was in man since time began.

But how to heal the breach? how to reach across?

Ay, that was the only answer now - the Cross!

Deep in his mind the roots ran that way, and his fate

Was fixed. The tree was grown that stood on Calvary,

What was to do was done. Still, it was a glad day.

Let the bells all ring, let them have their fling,

For this way led to glory and to everlasting Spring

Reflection (contd)

By contrast, most of us live our lives out of an attitude of scarcity. With Judas, we inclined to complain when the un-named woman, shortly before the passion of Jesus poured out the ointment over his feet in the house of Simon - protesting the ointment might have been sold for the poor. Holy Week draws us into the incredible mystery that there is no scarcity of grace, no need to bargain our way into the kingdom. But, we may well be asked to sit down at God's banquet with ones that we would dismiss as un-redeemable and outsiders to grace.

Music or Hymn

Today's gospel story holds a crucial place in the narrative of Jesus' passion, and it speaks to us of our own human dilemmas: our struggle to keep faith after we have betrayed Christ's grace, or when we feel that somehow Christ has let us down or when his love makes unfair demands on us. Are we willing to journey into accepting grace without balking at the reality that Christ offers grace to others not of our choosing. What would our life be like, if we lived it not out of some sense of scarcity but out of faith in the abundant life that is already ours in Christ? It is so difficult for us not to justify ourselves, not to fret over who is the first and who the last? It is not pleasant to contemplate sharing the gifts of God's reign with sinner, foreigner and outsider, with the hypocrite and the great unwashed? But today's gospel draws us toward the cross, with all its folly and inconsistency, to follow a Saviour who is also a Suffering Servant? Our sin, guilt, and even our assumed innocence must open their gates and let the Saviour enter in. That is the all-embracing grace that Jesus offers each one of us today.

Lamb of God

Today's gospel leaves us in no doubt that God's grace is stronger than our claims to innocence or self-justifying. Being reconciled is not about being without sin or guilt, but about our believing that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. And that is a very hard thing for us to believe. Somehow, we cling to the need to be innocent. In reality, all we are asked is to have faith that we are not condemned; to place our hope in Christ's judgment, rather than in our own judgment or in the approval of the world.

Reconciliation is a matter of faith and hope, but it is also a gift of love, given freely to us and given to us for the sake of others. In being reconciled, we are invited to love with Christ's love, to be God's reconciling love in the world. Reconciliation is not the soft option - the liberal middle ground where anything goes and nothing is demanded. But neither is it a restoring of the old order, some back-to-basics framework where the dissenting voice is silenced. Rather, the vision of Christian reconciliation is a God-like vision of faith, hope and love, God's power and grace at work in us, and in the world. "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!"

In Christ, then, all relationships are transfigured - in their core, in their direction. We confront new responsibilities and are drawn into new bonds of relationship - like the women who wept for Jesus, or Simon asked to carry Jesus' cross, or just as Jesus from the cross would invite his Mother and John to be with and for one another in a totally new way.

Hymn - Mother Behold Thy Son

As we reflect on the divisions keep us apart, and our easy settling for separation, we acknowledge how little we know of each other's human story or deep beliefs. And the question arises if we are ready for the journey into the dark places of reconciliation. For Christians and churches, this journey is prompted not by human impulse, but by the faith we share in Jesus' name, here, now; by the hope we hold for the coming of his reign, here, now; and by the love that is freely given to us and that missions us, here, now, to be ministers of reconciliation.

Reconciliation does not spring fully formed from vague good will in some neutral zone. Reconciliation will make costly demands on our faith, hope and love. In faith we are called to a conversion in our old ways of thinking. With the new mind of Christ we see that we belong together. Seeing one another through the eyes of faith will reveal that our stories are intertwined, with grace and disgrace on all sides. Repenting the hurt we inflict on one another, we are born to a new hope in Christ's gracious love. Our helplessness will give way to the freedom of the children of God and of living as God's reconciled people. In the shadow of the cross, it dawns on us. The old sense of scarcity disappears, as we surrender to the infinite abundance of grace.

Hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”

I began with the film "Dead Man Walking" and by suggesting that there is no innocent place to start, but something infinitely more vital than innocence awaits those Christians who will walk together the journey into reconciliation. For each stage of the journey reveals within and between our Christian communities, Christ's Spirit of faith, hope and love, still moving within us and between us. "For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

As we continue the journey with Christ into his Passion, we long for the Resurrection moment depicted in that beautiful Easter icon of the Orthodox Church, when Christ makes of his cross a bridge out of the underworld of death and separation and lets it become the bridge of reconciliation. We long for the day when together with the Risen Christ, we will be dead men walking, dead women walking.


Prayers of Intercession

1. Jesus, You knew the hearts of those who hailed you as king. We are deafened by the multitude of voices, blinded by our own selfishness. Give us discerning hearts. Help us to sustain the cost of discipleship in the days of desolation. Show us your mercy O Christ.

R. Lord have mercy.

2. Jesus, you wept for your people, mourning their present blindness and their future ruin. Now you enter Jerusalem as a humble servant. We praise you for your patience with us. Heal our fickleness and our drive to dominate. Have mercy on those who wage war and those who are the victims of war. Convert our hearts to your ways. Show us your mercy, Christ,

R. Lord have mercy.

3. Jesus, you desired to gather your people as a hen gathers her young; free us from the forces that split us apart; the terror that shatters communities and nations; Be the companion of refugees, bind up the wounded, change these times of hostility to times of homecoming. Show us your mercy, O Christ.

R. Lord have mercy.

4. Jesus, you turned aside from the lure of a political crown. We pray for our politicians and leaders. Deepen their vision and commitment to overcome the tragic failure of dialogue, to reject the mad weapons of war, whether in Belfast or Belgrade. Help us all to build trust, justice and peace. Show us your mercy, O Christ.

R. Lord have mercy.

5. Jesus, your cross reveals the mystery of healing and forgiveness. You break the bonds of death, and open your arms to every person. Through your death and resurrection, send your spirit to heal the sick, comfort the broken-hearted, put new heart into those in prison. We believe that you redeem our sin and that you have called us all to be ministers of reconciliation. Show us your mercy, O Christ.

R. Lord have mercy.

Final Prayer: Let us pray

God, our hope of victory,

whom we constantly betray;

grant us so to recognize your coming

that in our clamour

there may be commitment,

and in our silence

the very stones may cry aloud in your name, Amen.

(Janet Morley, All Desires Known, SPCK, London, 1988,1992, p. 12).

Blessing

Closing Music - Turlough Og





Other resources if needed:

Poem, WH Auden

Defenceless under the night

Our world in stupor lies;

Yet, dotted everywhere,

Ironic points of light

Flash out wherever the Just

Exchange their messages:

May I, composed, like them

Of Eros and of dust,

Beleaguered by the same

Negation and despair,

Show an affirming flame.

(WH Auden, from, The English Auden, Edward Mendelson, William Meredith, and Monroe K Spears, Executers of the Estate of WH Auden)



Prayer
Gracious God, you have given the human race Jesus Christ our Saviour, a man of humility. He fulfilled your will by becoming one of us and by giving his life on the cross for us. Help us to bear witness to you, by not lording it over others, but by accepting the suffering we meet on our journey. Through the power of Christ's Spirit, redeem the betrayal within us and among us. Reconcile us and make us whole so that we may rejoice with you forever in the glory of the resurrection, Amen.



Sr Geraldine Marie Smyth, OP