We Are Strewn in the Lord’s Path

Greetings,

            It is Thursday after Palm Sunday, but I am still focusing on the events of that day.  Our country has been caught up in political debate – or more often, political rhetoric and posturing – about issues of who is in charge of our lives and who is responsible for what in our society.  The polarization, which I have commented on before, continues to grow.  Unfortunately, so does the hatred.  We are confronting issues about the nature of humanity and the nature of the soul.  In this Holy Week it is important for us to be reminded that we ultimately are talking about our souls, and that we are created in the image of God which separates us from all other forms of life and which gives us particular responsibility for life – all life, and each others lives before God.  I again commend to your reading The Violence of Love by Oscar Romero, which is in the line of our theological heritage..

            Then the disciples brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and Jesus sat on it.  Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields.  Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,

            “Hosanna!

            Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

            Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!

            Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

                                                                                                            Mark 11:7-10

            It is ourselves that we must spread under Christ’s feet, not coats or lifeless branches or shoots of trees, matter which wastes away and delights the eye only for a few brief hours.  But we have clothed ourselves with Christ’s grace, with the whole Christ—”for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ”—so let us spread ourselves like coats under his feet

                                                                                                            Andrew of Crete   (Eighth century)

            Like splendid palm branches,

            we are strewn in the Lord’s path.

                                                                                                            Latin antiphon

            For the church, the many abuses of human life, liberty and dignity are a heartfelt suffering.  The church, entrusted with the earth’s glory, believes that in each person is the Creator’s image and that everyone who tramples it offends God.  As the holy defender of God’s rights and of God’s images, the church must cry out.  It takes as spittle in its face, as lashes on its back, as the cross in its passion, all that human beings suffer, even though they be unbelievers.  They suffer as God’s images.  There is no dichotomy between humans and God’s image.  Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being abuses God’s image, and the church takes as its own that cross, that martyrdom.

                                                                                                Oscar Romero

            And a final word from another man who offered himself in sacrifice:

            One who has surrendered to it knows that the way ends on the Cross—even when it is leading through the jubilation of Gennesaret or the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

                                                                                                Dag Hammarskjöld

Yours & His,

DED