Our Lady of Victory / St-Malachy

Caution: Putting a Sunday homily on the Website is tricky business. All the viewer has is a written text. A homily, on the other hand, is "an oral event". It may not have been said or heard the way it was written. In addition, a roughly ten-minute homily is part of a roughly one-hour worship event in which God and God's people communicate with each other by means of ritual, symbol, song, proclamation, prayer. Not everything in these homilies is original. As a homilist, I rely on and at times borrow from other homilists and writers who are not properly mentioned in this format. I am often indebted to them.

Palm Sunday A

(Done after the opening prayer, just before the readings)

Who is this Jesus that we acclaim as King, as first among us, as the one we want to lead us?

There is a significant detail in the Gospel that may give us the key to his identity: Jesus enters the city while seated, of all things, on a donkey that he has borrowed.

Jesus enters triumphantly not mounted on the high horse of power, superiority, prestige, but on a donkey, an animal that is known as the beast of burden; not a majestic horse, but a humble donkey. That says it all.

Jesus is among us on God’s behalf as one who serves.

As the following readings will indicate there is an immense power on display in this Jesus, but it is the power of love and fidelity, of service and compassion, of obedience and self-giving.

In this Jesus a new world, a new humanity is born. Our faith in Jesus sealed in baptism makes us be members of that new humanity;

It also makes us buy that path of love and fidelity, of service and compassion, of obedience and self-giving.

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