Palm Sunday, March 24, 2013

Palm Sunday, March 24, 2013

Epistle - Philippians 2: 5-11       Gospel – Matthew 26, 1-75; 27, 1-66         

My comments today are brief because of the lengthy reading of the Passion from Matthew’s Gospel

Why did our Lord ask for both animals since He could ride only one? Nowhere our Lord went and nothing He did or said was without a purpose. So we ask:  what did these animals represent for us? The ass represents the Jews, a people who were used to the burden of the Law of Moses. The young colt represents the Gentiles, unbridled and unused to the burden of that Law. Our Lord rode the colt into Jerusalem and the ass was led behind on a tether. This indicates that the Gentiles were about to be included in salvation history.

It is on the authority of the Apostles, as stated in the beginning of the Apostle’s Creed, that Jesus Christ is the only Son of God and that He was born of the Holy Ghost from the Virgin Mary. His divinity was not diminished by His humanity, nor was His humanity swallowed up by His divinity.

This unity of the Divine and the human in the Messiah was confessed by Peter when he said, “Thou are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” St. Peter was praised by our Lord for his understanding of this mystery which given to him by God the Father, and it was upon the strength of Peter’s faith that Jesus said that Peter was the rock upon which He would build His Church, and promised that the gates of hell would never prevail against it.

As the events of this Passion Week unfold, let’s come to understand that not only did the Son of God die for our sins, but He also laid down for us a perfect model of love. As Christ tells us in John 15, “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do the things that I command you.” +++

We Celebrate the Traditional Tridentine Latin Mass