In his
Apostolic Letter on the sixteen hundredth anniversary of the death of St.
Jerome Pope Francis writes: Devotion to
Scared Scripture, a “living and tender love” for the written word of God; this
is the legacy that St. Jerome bequeathed to the Church by his life and
labours……How can we not heed, in our day, the advice Jerome unceasingly gave
his cotemporaries: “Read the divine Scriptures constantly; never let the sacred
volume fall from your hand.” [1a]
Pope
Francis concludes his letter with this invitation: Let us, then, entrust
ourselves to Our Lady who, more than anyone, can teach us how to read,
meditate, contemplate, and pray to God, who tirelessly makes Himself present in
our lives. [1b]
Returning
to our reflections on the Holy Gospel according to St. John the spontaneous
exaltation of Jesus by the crowds, as St. John takes us into the holiest week
of every liturgical year, brings to mind the words of Jesus uttered with love
and sheer joy: “I give praise to You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for
although You have hidden these things from the wise and the learned You have
revealed them to the childlike. [Mt. 11:25].
On the
next day, when the great crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was
coming to Jerusalem, they took palm branches and went out to meet Him, and
cried out: “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! The king
of Israel.” [vs.12,13]
Some
commentaries equate this great crowd with the mob that would howl for Christ to
be crucified.
Such an
equation is suspect as in the latter case the mob was whipped up and virtually
controlled by religious leaders. While perhaps a few people from among the
crowd honouring Jesus may have gone the route of dishonour, this gathering of
the people was spontaneous, so the greater probability is if they were present
during Christ’s Passion it would have been with confused and broken hearts.
Jesus
found a donkey and sat upon it, as is written: “Fear no more, O daughter Zion;
see, your king comes, seated upon a donkey’s colt.” [vs. 14:15]
St.
Matthew: 21:1-11; St. Mark: 11:1-10; St. Luke 19:29-40 all have longer and more detail of
this extraordinary event, noting along with St. Matthew that the whole city of
Jerusalem was shaken.
Writing
about this event Pope Benedict XVI quotes from St. Matthew’s account about the
impact on the city and how when people asked of the crowd who this was the
people replied: This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee, the
Holy Father says: The parallel with the story of the wise men from the East
is unmistakable.” [2]
His
disciples did not understand this at first, but when Jesus had been glorified
they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done
this for Him. [v.16]
On more
than one occasion during their time with Jesus events occur, or Jesus teaches
things, which remain mysterious until after His glorious Resurrection. It is
part of the divine delicacy of Jesus’ love for His apostles that He patiently
prepares them for the unexpected wonder of understanding of all He has done and
taught when they encounter Him whom they love once He is Risen and they are
gifted with the Holy Spirit.
So the
crowd that was with Him when He called Lazarus from the tomb and raised Him
from death continued to testify. This was also why the crowd went to meet Him,
because they heard that He had done this sign. So the Pharisees said to one
another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the whole world has gone
after Him.” [vs.17-19]
First
St. John refers to an anonymous crowd
come to Jerusalem for the great feast of Passover and now here he specifically
states these were the people present when Jesus restored life to Lazarus and by
implication even those who had only heard about the miracle also came to meet
Jesus.
So we
have before us those who spontaneously cried out recognition of Jesus as
Saviour with all the gestures and Hosannas, those who perhaps not yet totally
convinced Jesus is the Messiah at least recognize His power of miracles and
finally, like living phantoms of some Jungian play about the shadow side of
people, the lurking Pharisees who, with their hyperbole arrogance admit their
failure because: the whole world has gone after Him.
Commenting
on the entrance into Jerusalem, Archbishop Sheen notes that the only ones not
sharing in the people’s acclaim of Jesus were the Pharisees who went to Jesus
insisting He silence the crowd: It was unusual that they should have appealed
to Our Lord, since they were disgusted with Him for having accepted homage from
the crowds. With awful majesty Our Lord retorted: I tell you, if My disciples
keep silence the stones will shout aloud. Luke 19:40. If men were silent,
nature itself would cry out and proclaim His Divinity. Stones are hard, but if
they would cry out, then how much harder must be the hearts of men who would
not recognize God’s mercy before them. [3]
In the
Office of Readings for the Sunday of the first week of Ordinary Time the Church
takes up the great hymn of Daniel and his companions: Then these three in
the furnace with one voice sang, glorifying and blessing God: “Blessed are You,
O Lord, the God of our ancestors, praiseworthy and exalted above all
forever…..” [Daniel 3:51-90] The three go on to call upon those in heaven
and on earth, human beings as children of God, and all animate creatures and
inanimate things from the sun and moon to frost and cold, rivers and seas, etc.
to cry out to the Lord, the Holy Trinity with exaltation.
Closer
to our time St. Francis of Assisi composed the poem CANTICLE OF THE SUN, which
various composers over the centuries since, to our own day have set to music.
We may not see the wind, but we can hear the wind singing in the trees; birds
sing, all creation sings, shines, shimmers with the sheer exuberance of
existence and gratitude to Love who creates and sustains us.
1a]
SCRIPTURAE SACRAE AFFECTUS, opening
1b]
ibid, conclusion
2]
JESUS OF NAZARETH, Holy Week from the entrance into Jerusalem to the resurrection;
Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict xvi; p.8; Ignatius Press, 2011 [italics are
mine]
3] LIFE
OF CHRIST, Fulton J. Sheen; p. 263; Image Classic, 1990
© 2020
Fr. Arthur Joseph