VI LENTEN SUNDAY – VI DIMANCHE DE CAREME
LENT 2015
ICCG Europe / ICCS EuroMed Regions
Gospel from Mk 15:1-39
As soon as morning came, the chief priests with the elders and the scribes, that is, the whole Sanhedrin held a council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. Pilate questioned him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” He said to him in reply, “You say so.” The chief priests accused him of many things. Again Pilate questioned him, “Have you no answer? See how many things they accuse you of.” Jesus gave him no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed.
Now on the occasion of the feast he used to release to them one prisoner whom they requested. A man called Barabbas was then in prison along with the rebels who had committed murder in a rebellion. The crowd came forward and began to ask him to do for them as he was accustomed. Pilate answered, “Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” For he knew that it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed him over. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead. Pilate again said to them in reply, “Then what do you want me to do with the man you call the king of the Jews?” They shouted again, “Crucify him.” Pilate said to them, “Why? What evil has he done?” They only shouted the louder, “Crucify him.” So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas to them and, after he had Jesus scourged, handed him over to be crucified.
The soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is, the praetorium, and assembled the whole cohort. They clothed him in purple and, weaving a crown of thorns, placed it on him. They began to salute him with, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and kept striking his head with a reed and spitting upon him. They knelt before him in homage. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, dressed him in his own clothes, and led him out to crucify him.
They pressed into service a passer-by, Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.
They brought him to the place of Golgotha – which is translated Place of the Skull – They gave him wine drugged with myrrh, but he did not take it. Then they crucified him and divided his garments by casting lots for them to see what each should take. It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” With him they crucified two revolutionaries, one on his right and one on his left. Those passing by reviled him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself by coming down from the cross.” Likewise the chief priests, with the scribes, mocked him among themselves and said, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also kept abusing him.
At noon darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Some of the bystanders who heard it said, “Look, he is calling Elijah.” One of them ran, soaked a sponge with wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink saying, “Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to take him down.” Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.
The veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. When the centurion who stood facing him saw how he breathed his last he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
FLOOR TO THE WITNESSES
It is a pleasure to have here with us two direct witnesses who followed Jesus during His life. They will accompany us through the entire Lenten journey and each Sunday they will tell us their feelings and thoughts concerning the Sunday Gospel. It is particularly important to see things from their point of view: they were present and they can bear witness to the faith they saw growing in their souls. Let us give them the floor:
PETER
The days of Jesus’s Passion mark my first DEATH: assisting to the end of your dreams of fame and glory in what He called “His Kingdom”, watching Him dying on the cross and not being able to do anything, your mind going blank, a terrible fear paralyzing your brain because you think that you could end up there, nailed near him in a blink of an eye… It is worse than dying!
This can really bring out the worst of a man. And this is what happened to me: I betrayed Him three times, out of fear (Jn 18: 25-27)! And do you know why? The time I spent with Jesus was wonderful: I asked questions, I spoke to Him as to my best friend, but I always had the unpleasant feeling that He wanted me to look at Him in the eye, and I never dared because I feared to read in His gaze the accusation for some guilt I did not repent of, the request for something I did not want to offer Him.
After that terrible day of His death, the only thought that kept me alive was recalling that day when I had the courage to look at Him in His eyes, where, for the first time, I could read all His love for me, even if He knew that I would betray Him: HE LOVED ME AS I AM. This is why I wept, that night: I wept on myself, asking Him the strength to be a better person, but my heart was full of hope. With His love, I had nothing to fear!
MARY
The days of Jesus’ Passion mark my first DEATH: assisting to my Son’s death is worse than dying, every lash on His flesh was a wound on my heart, every step that He walked under the cross was a stone on my soul, every nail in His flesh was a spike in my mind, every dying breath that He took was air stolen from my lungs… A mother would rather prefer this to be done to her, than to Her Son! A mother should die before Her Son, He should mourn her, not the contrary, He should weep on her, not the contrary!
I went through all this and, believe me, every step I took following Him on the path that would lead to His death, was a step into tears, sorrow, darkness, despair. At every step I thought I would die there, on the spot, and when He was on that cross I could not even look at those hands that I kissed that were trespassed by nails, I could not look at that body that I rocked lying on the cold wood of the cross, I could not look at that head that I kept on my heart bleeding because of the crown of thorns…
Then He called me, together with the disciple he loved most and said: “Woman, behold, your son.” (Jn 19:26). There I understood that He was asking me to die to myself as He was doing, because He was calling me to become the mother of all those who, like His disciple, would love Him, believe in Him and be made new in Him: I had to fear or suffer no more!
FOOD FOR THE MIND
Enduring Hope
As Jesus traveled to Jerusalem for the last time, his time to fulfill the Father’s plan for the salvation of humankind was drawing near. Jesus’s actions in washing his disciples’ feet, giving us his Body and Blood at the Last Supper, and accepting his agony and subsequent death on the Cross give us hope in difficult times and model faithful endurance when darkness envelops us. In times of suffering, failure, family breakups, loss of friends, or a loved one’s death, Jesus’s death gives us hope for a new tomorrow. Uniting our suffering with his, helps us see that to know ourselves we must turn our lives over to the Father. With hope, we trust that he will sustain us, thus preparing us for our eventual resurrection. Such enduring hope is the bottom line, if we are to recognize our true identity.
This identity in Christ – who gave His life for our salvation – is the starting point for fully live our lives, for happiness.
As Pope Francis tells us in his message to the XXX World Youth Day (the whole message can be found and read on http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/youth/index.html)
Dear young men and women, in the Christ you find fulfilled your every desire for goodness and happiness. He alone can satisfy your deepest longings, which are so often clouded by deceptive worldly promises. As Saint John Paul II said: “He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives” (cf. Discourse at the Prayer Vigil at Tor Vergata, 19 August 2000: Insegnamenti XXIII/2, [2000], 212).
Saint John Paul II, still at Tor Vergata, stated also «Dear young people, in these noble undertakings you are not alone. With you there are your families, there are your communities, there are your priests and teachers, there are so many of you who in the depths of your hearts never weary of loving Christ and believing in him. In the struggle against sin you are not alone: so many like you are struggling and through the Lord’s grace are winning!» (cf. Discourse at the Prayer Vigil at Tor Vergata, 19 August 2000: Insegnamenti XXIII/2, [2000], 212).
Holy week starts today! Live this period proposals and ceremonials within your community but live it, above all, with your heart and soul towards Christ that will rise in Easter! (picture: Simon András)
FOOD FOR HANDS – ACTIVITIES FOR ALL AGES
Now let us practice some activities that entail transformation/transfiguration. You may decide to start from them and then to introduce the ideas presented before.
FOR THE YOUNGEST MEMBERS
The Easter story is panoramic and includes many people and special places. Sometimes we forget to include Jesus’s entrance into the city on a donkey. The children sang, “Hosanna!” and greeted him with palm leaves. Kids use the scissors to cut the edges making the paper look like fronds. Give kids crayons to write “Hosanna” on the leaves. Play the song, “Hosanna” and allow kids to worship by waving their crafts in the area.
FOR YOUNG AND SENIOR MEMBERS
Palm Leaf Cross
Material:
ú Dried palm fronds
ú Scissors
Guidelines:
1. Make sure your palm frond is at least ¼ inch thick and 20 to 24 inches long. If it is thicker than 1/2 inch, cut in half by snipping the wider end with scissors and gently pulling it apart. Choose the flattest fronds you can find.
2. Hold the frond up so the widest end is pointed toward the floor. Bend the pointed end back, away from you and straight down so the crease falls about 4 inches above the bottom of the frond. The frond should be longer at the back of the fold than at the front.
3. Turn your frond around so you can see the back. Grip the frond about an inch below the folded end with your thumb and forefinger. Fold the long part of the frond up and to the right so that it makes a small, diagonal fold right below your thumb. Pinch to flatten.
4. Pinch the diagonal fold between your thumb and forefinger. The pointed end of the front should be pointed to the right. Fold the frond away from you, making a crease about 2 inches away from the tip of your thumb. The point of the frond should now be pointing left.
5. Fold the pointed end of the frond back toward you, making a second crease about 2 inches from your thumb. All the arms of the cross should now be formed.
6. Bend the frond gently up in a diagonal fold so that the pointed end sticks out between the top of the cross and the right arm. Fold the point down and away from you so that the point sticks out between the bottom of the cross and the left arm.
7. Gently press the palm frond across the bottom arm of the cross where it meets the left and right arms. The point should be below and parallel to the right arm of the cross.
8. Fold the frond up and away from you on a diagonal so the point sticks out between the top of the cross and the left arm. Fold the point toward you and down, slipping the point through the fold that you made in step 7. Turn the cross over; it is complete.