You may remember as a child how Palm Sunday was filled with feelings of lightness and generosity. You got a sweet-scented palm, replacing the dry one burnt to ashes. Burning the old and replacing the new meant that soon a basket of candy would be appearing. Later in life, after you have outgrown the candy, what is there to look forward to? The Passion of Christ is filled with betrayal, abandonment, and death—like joy also all elements of a human life. Who is this man? Who are you?

The Passion story is the longest passage of scripture you ever hear in church. It's nearly two chapters long. It includes a cast of characters too numerous to follow without a missalette. It also requires you to pay attention for a long time in a culture not much given to listening. So one way you can use this reading is as an annual examination of conscience, to pinpoint yourself on the road of discipleship. Which character in the story best represents your relationship to Jesus this year?

From noon to three, the whole earth was dark. Around mid-afternoon Jesus groaned out of the depths, crying loudly, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

When my brother lived in Virginia I enjoyed my visits there. One 4th of July I watched fireworks as I flew over towns and cities below. I once drove 13 hours straight and rang his doorbell at 6 p.m., not a minute past the arrival time I gave him. Often I took side-trips through Pennsylvania or Maryland. I went to celebrate his retirement. I traveled there to help him prepare for surgery he was given only a small chance of surviving. Ten years later I was there for what would be a last visit, only a week later returning to bring his ashes home. I miss him and the trips there.

Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins, and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.

The “servant” in Isaiah faithfully accepts his vocation despite the hostility and abuse it would involve.

When we think of heroes we usually think of those who save people through their use of power or force, those who establish empires, those who dominate the competition—think Superman, Alexander the Great, Michael Jordan. But Jesus broke the mold when it comes to heroes. He shows us another way to live a heroic life: emptying ourselves in service to others—think Mother Teresa, Saint Francis of Assisi, Archbishop Oscar Romero. The Easter story teaches us that when we pour ourselves out for the sake of others, our resulting “emptiness” allows us to rise to the very heavens.

The one who seeks not the cross of Christ seeks not the glory of Christ. —Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591)