(Palm Sunday 1998: This homily was given on April 5, 1998 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I. by Fr. Raymond Suriani.)
"Holy Week: A time to make some important connections."
Holy Week is a time to make some important connections.
For example:
What’s the connection between me and the characters we just heard about in Luke’s version of the Passion?
How am I like Peter?
How am I like Pontius Pilate?
How am I like Mary Magdalene?
How am I like Judas?
What’s the connection between the Passion of our Lord and the events we read about in the daily newspaper?
How are they related?
What do the events of the first Holy Week tell me about the world in which we’re living right now?
What’s the connection between the Passion of Jesus and my attitude toward life?
Generally speaking, is my attitude a hopeful one?
Is it one of despair?
Should it change, in light of what Jesus Christ did for me on Holy Thursday and Good Friday?
What’s the connection between the Sacrifice of Christ and my sins?
Why did he die?
Why did he have to die?
Why did he have to die in that way?
How do my evil actions today affect what happened to Jesus 2,000 years ago?
What’s the connection between Jesus’ Cross and my daily crosses?
What did that event on Good Friday have to do with my present-day aches and pains, with my emotional distress, with my disappointments and other sufferings?--what’s the connection?
What meaning does the Cross of Christ give to my daily crosses?
(Here’s a connection, by the way, that Dr. Jack Kevorkian definitely does not understand. That’s why he helps people kill themselves. Perhaps he doesn’t understand it because he never took the time to reflect on it during Holy Week!)
Bishop Fulton Sheen used to say that he considered the Cross of Christ to be his own personal "autobiography". As he put it in one of his books: "In the crown of thorns, I see my pride; my grasping for earthly toys in the pierced hands; my flight from shepherding care in the pierced feet, my wasted love in the wounded heart; and my prurient desires in the flesh hanging from him in purple rags."
Every single day of his priestly life, Bishop Sheen made a Holy Hour in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. During that time, he reflected on the many connections between his own life and the passion and death of Jesus. That’s why he understood his own life—and the world—so well! The questions I threw out to you a few moments ago—those were just some of the questions that he spent many, many hours pondering. He prayed, he pondered, and he made connections! May we all do the very same thing during this coming Holy Week.