Palm Sunday 28.3.21 Commitment
The people welcome Our Lord, which is right, but then call out for His crucifixion just a few days later. We want to maintain the welcome and leave out the betrayal!
Why did they betray him so quickly? It must mean that their welcome was rather thin.
They might have thought they meant it but experience exposed
the limits of their loyalty.
They were suffering from ‘following the crowd’, a dangerous practice. They had not reached the solidity of faith required to hold firm.
Religion does lend itself to self-deception, and sometimes to being too glib about what that religion requires. To be a disciple of Christ is a serious business.
There are not supposed to be grades of disciples because all disciples should be good .
In reality we do have weak or mediocre disciples. This is what we have, but not how it is meant to be. All disciples should be red-hot in belief and commitment - centred on the person of Our Lord.
Each of us, as individuals, can make it so. It is not meant to be hard to be a disciple. There will be suffering but the reality itself is liberating. Set free from all that is false, we breathe the fresh air of Heaven.
We have a foretaste of heavenly joy as we recognize the true Saviour who can remove all the things that afflict us.
This is the miracle we have been looking for. He has come among us and we take the medicine.
It does require a response from us; we do need to be committed enough, at least to be within range of Calvary.
And in range of Christ Himself calling in His disciples. We might be a long way back from the front row but we are scrambling along and not straggling; certainly not abandoning our position.
We know people can be weak, but they can also improve.
For each of us, our present level of commitment can be increased - it needs to be, and it can be.
We drill it into our consciousness that Jesus Christ is our first loyalty. He is not an option or an extra, but the centre of our lives.
If we can keep the discipline we will hold on, carried by our prayers and sacraments etc.
This is how to be strong and remain so, constantly reaffirming what we already have, we become ready to go to the Cross, and to stay there.
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