For a second consecutive time we are entering Holy Week in the shadow of covid-19. I do not think that, last year, anyone of us would have predicted that we would still be here today. And yet, here we are, still living this reality of uncertainty, distances from loved ones (friends or family) and, for some, pain of loss of jobs, health or loved ones. It is within this framework that we celebrate Palm Sunday today. While Jesus enters Jerusalem, people sing their Hosannas, spread their colorful cloaks and carpets and joyously wave palm leaves and olive branches. Little do they know how tumultuous that week is going to be! Jesus knows, however, that this festive atmosphere won’t last long. The great Passover feast is just a few days away, and yet so much has to happen till then. He knows that in a few days He will have to go through His own time of fear, pain, separation and uncertainty. It is no wonder that the Church invites us to listen to the whole passion narrative of Jesus during this Sunday’s liturgy. The full narrative of the passion of Jesus is only proclaimed on Good Friday in our liturgies through the year, besides today. And we know that that is not enough. There is so much to ponder inside that story that we are grateful that we are offered a whole week to think and pray about it.

I invite each one of you to pick up this gospel and read it slowly and prayerfully, a bit at a time, during this week. This will give you an opportunity to journey with Jesus from the joy of Palm Sunday into His last days on earth with his disciples. Allow yourself time to feel the change in mood, from joy to sadness and pain and hopelessness. Feel the sense of loss and confusion experienced by the disciples, and the great pain experienced by Mary, a pain which only a mother can feel, and the small group of women accompanying her. Try to imagine what was going through Peter’s mind when part of him wanted to follow and be with his beloved Master, and yet he was so scared that he denied even knowing the man. Finally, contemplate the abandonment Jesus felt from the cross, followed by His own total abandonment into His Father’s hands.

All this leads to our Easter celebration on Saturday night. The night of all nights, when victory is proclaimed and celebrated over sin, death, and all that is evil in our lives and in our world.

Years of celebrating the Holy Week liturgies risk causing in us a certain numbness to the real feelings experienced in that first Holy Week. We’ve heard the story so many times, and we know the ending! Yet the pain of everyone, the sense of betrayal and loneliness experienced by the Master, the fear that in different ways engulfed both Him and His friends are all very real. And as we meditate and pray, that pain becomes one with our pain, their fear one with our fears. We are invited to gently journey with Jesus during his week as we graft our experiences into the gospel-story.

The liturgies of Holy week validate our fears, pains, worries and uncertainties. After all, Jesus’ death was a real death. Belief in the Resurrection is not a denial of any of this. What Saturday night tells us is that pain, evil, death do not have the last say. It tells us that there is Someone who overcame all this, Someone who is powerful enough to unexpectedly bring something good out of it. And we know that life after the resurrection is never a return to the old life. It is an introduction to a life that is better than what we have known so far, beyond any human imagination.
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As we journey and pray during this covid-stricken Holy Week, let us allow the One who is life to transform our human Hosanna into a divine Halleluiah.
 
 

Nicodemus was a good man. Granted, the Bible does not tell us much about him, but we can safely assume that he was. He’s only mentioned three times in the Gospel of John. There’s the nocturnal meeting with Jesus. Later, during the narrative of the passion of Jesus, Nicodemus reminds the Pharisees that under Jewish law, Jesus should be granted a hearing before he’s condemned. Finally, Nicodemus brings ointments to assist in Jesus’ burial and make it a decent one. He was also a powerful Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council.

Today’s gospel presents us with the conclusion of a meeting Nicodemus had with Jesus, in the midst of a dark night. Being a person of such a high and important status (both civil and religious), he was not supposed to mix with either such a rebel rabbi or any of his uneducated followers. But he needed to meet this Jesus. Something must have told him that Jesus could give him answers for some of his questions. He was searching, questioning, and that is always a mark of a wise person. Given the circumstances, he must have felt that it would have been safer to meet Jesus during the night. This night-time meeting takes on another meaning, when we remember that it is written by St John. John is a master of symbolism., with which his gospel is peppered. Here we have someone who is in darkness coming to meet Jesus, who is the light of the world. There’s nothing better than going straight to the source!

In today’s gospel passage Jesus helps Nicodemus and, through him, each and everyone of us, to better understand who God is. Like each one of us, Nicodemus must have had his own ideas about God. Having had his formation and upbringing as a Pharisee, he must have believed in a God who is always ready to judge and condemn. His idea of religion would have been that of pure meritocracy: if you do good you are rewarded, if not you are punished.

Jesus Helps Nicodemus understand that God is Love. He loves so much that he sent his only Son to the world. And this son did not come to condemn or to judge, but only to save. The only ones who are not saved are those who choose not to accept Jesus and his message. As always, God respects our freedom. To further help Nicodemus understand this concept, Jesus recalls a passage of the old testament when Moses put a bronze serpent on a high pole in the desert so that whoever was bitten by the poisonous snakes could look at it and be healed.

At the end of this conversation the gospel returns to the symbolism of light and darkness. Jesus came to the world as light. Unfortunately, some people prefer to stay in the darkness, just as there could have been some people in the desert who chose not to look at Moses’ serpent. Here Jesus praises Nicodemus who chose to come and seek the light. He told him, “those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

​As we move on in our Lenten journey, it would be a good idea to think about our own idea of who God is. Like Nicodemus, let us make sure to find some quiet, personal time with Jesus allowing him to get to know God better and bask in His loving arms.