Sunday, April 13, 2025

Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday – Year C

Homily by Father Emmanuel Schwab

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Palm Sunday Procession – Luke 19,28:40-XNUMX

“Untie it and bring it. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say, ‘Because the Lord has need of it.’”

What the Gospel teaches us about this donkey, about which we know little, is that it is untied, unbound, to serve the Lord. It is a magnificent prophecy, a magnificent image of what the Lord does for us. God became man to come and untie man from his sin, so that man could serve God. Brothers and sisters, the good news of this day is that you are donkeys, that we are donkeys that the Lord comes to untie because he needs us, because he wants to need us. As Thérèse says in a letter to Céline:

Jesus has such an incomprehensible love for us that he wants us to share with him in the salvation of souls. He does not want to do anything without us. (LT 135 to Céline – August 15, 1892)

Yes, brothers and sisters, God wants to free us from our sins. He wants to free us from everything that keeps us away from him so that we can serve the living God, so that we can serve Jesus, so that we can make the good news of salvation resound in our world, so painful, so disoriented. You may know what is called the Carthusian motto: The cross remains while the world turns.

Yes, brothers and sisters, we are witnesses of salvation for our world. We are witnesses of God's mercy for all people. We are not only witnesses, but also beneficiaries and agents of this mercy.

So let us imitate the crowds of Jerusalem who were happy to acclaim the Lord: let us move forward in peace.

1st reading: Isaiah 50,4-7

Psalm: 21 (22), -9, 17-18a,19-20, 22c-24a

2rd reading: Philippians 2,6:11-XNUMX

Gospel: Luke 22, 4 – 23,56

“For us it is right: after what we have done, we have what we deserve. But he has done nothing wrong. And he said, ‘Jesus, remember me

when you come into your Kingdom.”

Saint Luke is the only one to tell us about this episode of Jesus' Passion, this confession of faith, this recognition of sin, this trust expressed by this man in Jesus, in whom he recognized someone who can save him, someone who can open a path for him beyond death. We can make this confession our own. We can make it our own in both dimensions.

The dimension of confession of sin: yes, after what we have done, we deserve to die. I know this is not very fashionable, but it is the teaching of all Scripture: death is the consequence of sin and eternal death is the consequence of refusing God's mercy. It is unfortunately possible for man to damn himself eternally. This so gripped Saint Thérèse that after her conversion in the house of Les Buissonnets at Christmas 1886, she immediately recounted how she carried a man condemned to death, Pranzini, she carried him in prayer, in sacrifices, in penance, so that he would not be damned and so that he would open himself to Salvation. Yes, brothers and sisters, man's freedom is such that he can refuse God for eternity.

As Cardinal Ratzinger said at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris a few years ago, in 2003, I believe: "Hell is where God is not."

We must make our own this confession of faith of the good thief, also in its dimension of trust and hope: “Remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” ThisThe man understands that, despite all that he has done, the one who is crucified with him, Jesus, can open up a future for him and a future of eternity. Saint Therese is very early fascinated by this mercy of God. In one of her best-known poems, Living on love, she writes:

6. To live by Love is to banish all fear.

Any remembrance of past faults.

Of my sins I see no trace,

In an instant love burned everything…..

Divine flame, O most sweet Furnace!

In your hearth I fix my stay

It is in your fires that I sing at my ease:

“I live on Love!…” (PN 17)

Recognizing our sins, recognizing them to the point of being able to name them, state them, explain them, and especially doing so during this Holy Week in the sacrament of penance and reconciliation, by going to the priest and saying: Yes, Father, bless me because I have sinned and these are my sins...

But if I come to confess my sins in the sacrament of penance and reconciliation, it is because I believe that God is opening a future for me, that through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Lord is opening a path of conversion for me. The first grace I receive when I go to confession is to leave with a strengthened will, a will made stronger by a renewed communion with God.

The Church invites us at least once a year, preferably at Easter, to receive this beautiful sacrament. And I strongly encourage you to do so!

Jesus' response to the good thief: “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” is also the answer that Jesus gives to each of us, when, recognizing our sins, we express the renewal of our total trust in the mercy of God, our total trust in Jesus who saves us... Today, with me : this is heaven. If hell is where God is not, heaven is being with Jesus right now… Today.

Thérèse wrote to Céline shortly after entering Carmel:

Oh yes. Let us be one with Jesus, let us despise everything that passes. Our thoughts must be directed to heaven since that is the dwelling place of Jesus. (LT 65 to Celine – October 20, 1888)

But Jesus, who makes himself present with us, in our midst, brings Heaven to earth right now. In him, the Kingdom is present, in him paradise is there. But we still have to be with Jesus! And this is the Christian life, brothers and sisters: to be a Christian is to be a disciple of Jesus. It is to walk with Jesus every day, every moment, to be with him. A woman expecting a child is with him all day and all night. It is a very beautiful image of our relationship with Jesus. It is truly about carrying him within us since he wants to make his home within us, to carry him in this intimacy of communion. But this takes time to learn. Two and a half months before her death, Thérèse wrote to Father Bélière in a letter:

I am not at all surprised that the practice of familiarity with Jesus seems a little difficult to achieve; it cannot be achieved in a day, but I am sure that I will help you much more to walk this delightful path when I am delivered from my mortal coil, and soon like St. Augustine you will say: "Love is the weight that drags me down." (LT 258 to Abbé Bellière – July 18, 1897) Yes, brothers and sisters, let us learn from Thérèse to live this intimate communion with Jesus daily, to live this familiarity with Jesus, because it is today, it is with Jesus and never without him, that he wants us to taste here and now, through the trials and daily worries, through the anxieties of our world, it is today with him that he wants us to taste the joy of paradise.

And through this joy, encourage us to continue on our path to reach, through his Passion and his Cross, the glory of his resurrection.

Amen

Father Emmanuel Schwab, Rector of the Shrine