Palm Sunday raises at least two important spiritual questions for Christians: What does it mean to be like Jesus? And what does it mean to take up our crosses, just like he did?
First, you don't need to go looking for your cross. Life gives them to you. Whether it's an illness or a tough family relationship or trouble in school or problems on the job. The real cross is the one that you don't want.
Because it's hardly a cross if you want it.
Just like it was for Jesus.
Second, we are asked by Jesus to accept our crosses.
Now, what does that mean? Well, first it means accepting that suffering is a reality in your life, and being honest about it. Perhaps more importantly, it means not passing along the bitterness that you feel. That doesn't mean that when you're with friends or family members or counselors, you can't talk about it or complain about it or even cry about it. That's both healthy and natural.
But it does mean that if you're angry about your boss or about school or about your family, you don't pass along that anger or bitterness or meanness to others. If you have a lousy boss, does that mean that you should be mean to your family? If you have a difficult family situation, does that mean that you should be angry with your coworkers? If you are having problems at school, does that mean that you should be cruel to your family?
Your cross is your cross. It shouldn't become someone else's.
Third, wait for the resurrection. Because in every cross there will be some invitation to new life, to a new way of relating to God, and often in a way that may not be immediately apparent.
In other words, where is the new life that God is holding out for you? And how will it come? Is it in forgiving someone in your family? Moving away from an unhealthy work environment? Letting go of something that prevented you from being more loving? Trusting in yourself a little more?
Surrendering yourself to the future that God has in store for you?
God's gift of resurrection is usually a complete surprise, just like it was for the Apostles. And just as the Apostles discovered on Easter Sunday, the resurrection does not come when you expect it. It sometimes takes a long time to come at all.
And when it does come, it's often not what you would expect it to look like.
Most of all, it's often hard to describe, because it's personal -- it's your resurrection.
When I was a Jesuit novice, I worked in a hospital for seriously ill people, and every Friday we had a little discussion group. One young woman, who had been in a wheelchair for many years told me something that completely surprised me. She said that she used to think of her chair as a cross -- which would have been my reaction -- but lately, she said, she thought of it as her resurrection.
She said, "My wheelchair helps me get around. Without it, I wouldn't be able to do anything. It brings me life."
Despite our crosses, or maybe because of them, these resurrections in our lives do come. You have Jesus's word on that.
James Martin, SJ, is a Jesuit priest, culture editor of America and author of 'The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything and My Life with the Saints.'
Bishop Mark S. Hanson: Easter 2011: Let Your Life Sing
Palm Sunday - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
What Is Palm Sunday - What Do Christians Celebrate On Palm Sunday
so let me respond in kind. The nebulus sandbar cannot alter the non-trajectory of the reversing progectile vomit.
methodman, please go get that GED then get back to us.
If you read the lives of the saints, and the apostles you discover that they each sufferred, and many seemed to seek out suffering, once they understood its value to God, and themselves. So in the end, we should probably not be so quick to allow ourselves to suffer a little.
On the other hand, human beings will be resurrected from their crosses -- as Jesus was on the third day after His crucifixion -- because of Christ's love for us, and His assistance in resolving our hardships.
Jesus was also never a Christian, that term was even coined until the days of Paul, about 3 decades after Jesus walked the earth a man. Jesus was a social justice, radical revolutionary Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who rose up and challenged the job security of the Temple authorities by teaching the people they did NOT need to pay the priests for ritual baths or sacrificing livestock to be OK with God; for God already LOVED them just as they were:
Sinners, poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under Roman Military Occupation.
What got Jesus crucified was disturbing the status quo of the Roman Occupying Forces of his time, by teaching the subversive concept that Caesar only had power because God allowed it and that God preferred the humble sinner, the poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under Roman Occupation above the elite and arrogant.
In the afternoon of the eighth day of my second Reality Tour through the West Bank, I was one of sixty international ecumenical Christians introduced to Sabeel’s Contemporary Way of Cross...
http://wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2042&Itemid=245
I awoke and saw that life was duty,
I acted, and behold duty was joy.
--Rabindranath Tagore,
In other words, anyone who wishes to satisfy their disordered appetites, live a sinful life, traed that wide easy path to sin, without making amends, or repenting, will lose eternal life.
Jesus says " He who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me." (Mt 10, 38)
For example, since the future of our nation is important to me, my cross is religious extremists who feel the need to impose their beliefs on the rest of the nation. These extremists pretend they have some God-given right to rule our nation. Of course, our Constitution assures the exact opposite.
I confess. I have trouble bearing that cross. The only way I can, is to oppose all attempts to impose religious rule in America. Is that a problem?
Now put it back in the deck . . .
meditation , the practice of going deep within to the origin of all , the transcendent field of immortality and unbounded creative intelligence , meditation practice which removes stress any stress , even the cross [ used as a symbol of stress or burden ] and prevents unjust crosses placed on humans is transcendental meditation (TM) tm.org
Transcendental meditation (TM), the way to contact the within in Christ's imperative ' seek ye FIRST the kingdom of heaven......within YOU !!! ' , is also the best prevention of sickness
jesuits in particular should be able to cure their addiction to suffering ; religion is absolutely not ever about suffering but freedom from suffering
what the mundane world is about is not what religion is about; since the Church has been preaching suffering , it has been a failure and worse than useless
Christ entered Jerusalem during passover ; a time of passion in Judah about liberation from Rome ; knowingly or unknowingly he challenged Rome and Pharisees who were entrusted by Rome with maintaining order ; a big crowd was not wanted at passover time; when does any government like a big big crowd at a non-establishment event ?
The crucifixion didn't save us (tens of thousands of innocents were crucified by the Romans) but the resurrection proved what happens when we trust in only God's love, no matter what - just as Jesus did - and eternal life is ours.