“FIRST IMPRESSIONS”

PALM SUNDAY OF THE LORD’S PASSION

APRIL 13, 2025

(Luke 19: 28-40); Isaiah 50: 4-7; Philippians 2: 6-11; Luke 22: 14- 23:56

PLUS--- NOTES ON PREACHING DURING THE TRIDUUM

By: Jude Siciliano, OP

Dear Preachers:

Today’s gospel is Luke’s telling of the Passion narrative. It is long and perhaps too much for one reader. Some parishes where I have preached divide the gospel into shorter sections and involved several readers. For example: the Last Supper; agony in the garden; trial before the Sanhedrin, Pilate and Herod and the crucifixion, death and burial.

In Luke’s gospel Jesus is presented as a prophet. As was the case with other prophets in the Bible he is rejected for his teaching and actions. The poor accept him and raise him up; but those who are of an established and privileged class, along with religious authorities, are threatened by him and plan to kill him.

Seeing the rising opposition before him Jesus seeks the way of obedience to God’s will. At the Last Supper he instructs his disciples on what is to happen and of his decision to stay faithful to his prophetic mission. He models for his disciples how they are to continue that mission.

Jesus is well aware what will happen to him if he stays faithful to God’s will. In Gethsemane he experiences intense struggle, anticipating what will happen to him if he continues his mission. But God is with them, “And to strengthen him an angel from heaven appeared to him.” Jesus was not sent by his Father just to die, rather he was to fulfill his mission to reveal God’s love for all – even if it meant his death.

If I am a follower of Jesus that I too am called to live as a prophet in my daily life. The prophetic mission begins with listening to God’s word. Jesus has revealed what the consequences of receiving that word each day are for us: to embrace the least; forgive sinners; speak boldly against injustice, large or small; stand with the outcasts, immigrants, imprisoned, homeless and the grieving. There is more. Each of us must look in to our own lives and answer the question: “how am I being called today to follow Jesus the prophet?”

Here's some input on the TRIDUUM.
This is an overview of the days and suggests to the preacher some things to ponder as we prepare preaching and are involved in the liturgical celebrations. So, what follows are "notes from a preacher's file for the preaching of the Triduum." I leave it to you to apply them to each preaching.

1. Be careful these days not to caricature the Jewish faith. The Gospels portray its piety and leaders in a very unsympathetic light. Don't become an unconscious anti-Semite. Such bashing of the Jews can reveal an insecure faith, seeking assurance in caricaturing the faith of others. Jewish people suffered their worst pogroms during Holy Week at the hands of Christians. So, be careful of subtle forms of anti-Semitism. For example, in John’s gospel there are many references these days to “the Jews.” What he really means are the Jewish authorities, so why not make the substitution when “the Jews” show in opposition to Jesus in the readings? Call them the “Jewish authorities.”

2. Be careful to respect the integrity of each Gospel. Don't harmonize or fill in to make a composite picture. Stay within the text and treat it distinctively, learn how each writer saw and witnessed the Christ event.

3. Remember that the principle actor is God. There are some key figures in the stories for meditation ( Peter, Pilate, etc.), but in the Gospels this week Jesus absorbs our attention. Put aside all else, even the "moral lessons." We see nothing but Jesus, and him crucified. What is God doing and saying to us this week?

4. The Triduum is a unity: this contradicts the conventual's wisdom that sees each day as a separate unit. Note that in each day of the Triduum there is explicit reference to the whole paschal liturgy. Each particular day commemorates the whole of the mystery, while at the same time emphasizing one aspect of the events. So we preach Good Friday in its defeat and pain in the light of the hope of the resurrection; we preach Easter in its glory, reminded of the seeming hopelessness of Good Friday. The renewed emphasis isn't on "holy week," but on the consciousness of the passion and resurrection as intimately bound to our own lives as church.

5. This is a good time to work with the lectors. The Word this week is powerful in its drama, lively in the hearing. The congregation won't need to follow along with a written text if the lectors and participating preachers are well prepared.

6. I want to be careful how I preach about suffering and death during these days. I wonder how we can think of them as positive? In the Scriptures of the Jewish people, suffering and death are to be avoided and, where possible, alleviated. The hope we have as Christians is that God will do away with both at the end. It also seems to be always the poor who suffer the most, who always are the victims. So, during these days the preacher might invite the congregation to become more fully involved with God's plan to alleviate suffering by working to end the suffering of the poor by our deeper involvement in social programs and in the electoral process itself. Good Friday, for example, should not be a day that keeps a silence of inattention to the suffering of others. If we keep a silence this day it may be to ponder the suffering of those around us and to resolve to do something about it.

7. During Lent I have had a few occasions to use a service of the Cross used in parishes and retreat houses. It may be useful on Good Friday for a small group reflection or, if it is not too late to prepare, even for a parish. You'll need twigs four or five inches long to have each participant make a cross. Red or purple twine is used to tie them together. Invite people to reflect as they make the cross on their own cross and on the crosses people of the world carry. Invite them to place all these burdens on the cross they are making. Then they can bring their crosses and lay them at the foot of a large cross. If the assembly is small enough, you can invite them to share some aspects of the cross (darkness, and death) they see in the world. (I did this recently with religious sisters and the sharing became powerful.) After they put their crosses at Jesus' cross, accompanied with a hymn and a short Scripture, you can invite them to take another's cross home with them and ask them to pray for that unknown person's cross.

Click here for a link to this Sunday’s readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041325.cfm