Palm Sunday

My brothers and sisters,
We are in Holy Week now. Have you ever asked why this week is called Holy Week? In fact it is the week of the suffering and the death of Jesus. The answer is quite simple: to be holy we have to pass by suffering and death. The suffering and death are the other side of holiness. It means that if we want to be holy, we should not be afraid of suffering and dying faithfully in Lord Jesus. Jesus told us, if anyone wishes to come after him, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Him. He himself did it. He denied himself by not sparing his life for our sake; he took his cross, the cross that should not be His.

In this Holy week, Jesus asks each one of us: where is your cross? Do you want to suffer with me? Do you want to be holy? Maybe we can answer him: Yes Jesus, I want to be holy … but I don’t want to suffer, it’s difficult, and I don’t want to die with you, at least: not now, for I still have many things to do.

But the question if we want to be holy, needs not our answer, because Jesus himself wants us to be holy. And He will give us the way to that holiness, by our suffering. He will and he did. Now let us look at many kinds of suffering that we have in our daily life.

First, one can suffer because of his sin, like a thief captured by the police and put into jail. He suffers because of his guilt. This kind of suffering will recall us to repentance if we are opened to grace of God and it will lead us to holiness as well. If we are not opened to the grace of God we often do the same sin again and again or even worse and worse. But God never stop to remind us to repentance by suffering we have.

Second, one can suffer because of love for another, like Jesus did or Moses or other prophets did to his people. We can also have this kind of suffering because of our love for our children or for someone else. The troops suffer in a war because of their love for their country. A father works hard because of his love for his family. This kind of love can be like a sacrifice that will guide us to holiness. We can accept this kind of suffering, can’t we? Because we know for what or for whom we suffer.

But there is the last kind of suffering that we don’t know why; we don’t understand why it happens. It is not because of our sin or others sin, nor because of the love for another. For example, the suffering someone has in an awful accident, or in a grave illness, like cancer or other terminal illness and so on … you see! We really don’t know why this happen to us. I know a mother who lost her 2 sons in one accident, hit by a truck and the driver was drunk. This truly caused great suffering to the mother, she can cry and protest to the Lord. She doesn’t know why this happened. But one thing we know in faith: that even in our suffering God never leaves us alone. Have you ever heard the story of the footprints on the sand? It shows us that at the height of our suffering, the Lord never leave us, on the contrary He holds us in his arms. Suffering is needed to test our faith, as gold is tested in the flame of fire. Bigger and bigger the fire so is more purified the gold. Bigger and bigger our suffering so is more purified our faith.

My brothers and sisters, I myself have to acknowledge that I don’t like suffering. But if Jesus wants me to share in his own, I will humbly accept it. I remember a mother said in TV that his son, a soldier, doesn’t want to go war, but he has to go. To follow Jesus is the same. We don’t like the way of the cross, but we have to. It is the only way to holiness. Only Jesus himself can make it possible for us to follow him in his way. Let us come closer to him. Let him work in our weakness that we will not be afraid anymore to suffer with Him, to walk with Him and to be holy in Him. Amen