A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy

 

BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 9, n. 21)

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, Year A – April 17, 2011 *

 

“Like Christ, the Seed that Died”

 

BIBLE READINGS

Is 50:4-7 // Phil 2:6-11 // Mt 26:14-27:66

 

 

(N.B. Series 9 of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY includes a prayerful study of the Sunday liturgy of Year A from the perspective of the Second Reading. For reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year C based on the Gospel reading, please scroll up to the “ARCHIVES” above and open Series 3. For reflections based on the Old Testament reading, open Series 6.)

 

 

I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS

 

The Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion is replete with contradictions and typical Christian irony as we delve into the heart of the paschal mystery. Harold Buetow remarks: “Today, with the beginning of Holy Week, we begin to focus intently on the heart of the mystery of salvation. It is the mystery of dying and rising, the mystery of humiliation and exaltation, the mystery of suffering and glorification, the mystery of death in order to live eternally, the mystery of defeat which is crowned with victory. It is the story of the fickleness of the crowd that we hear shout “Hosanna” today and “Crucify him” on Good Friday. It is a story in which agony and ecstasy are combined. It is a story full of contradictions: to call today ‘Passion Sunday’, for example, emphasizes suffering and death, while the words ‘Palm Sunday’ emphasize glory and victory.”

 

This Sunday’s liturgy invites us to contemplate Jesus’ complete obedience to the saving will of the Father as an example for us to follow. Like Christ, the seed that died, we too must die to self in order to live. The “Christological hymn” cited by Saint Paul in the Second Reading (Phil 2:6-11) helps us trace the whole paschal itinerary of Christ’s kenosis or self-emptying and his supreme exaltation.

 

The Benedictine biblical scholar Ivan Havener comments on the hymn: “We find a portrayal of Christ who did not selfishly cling to his exalted position of being in the form of God … Rejecting Adam’s sin, Jesus freely emptied himself from his exalted position and took on Adam’s condition of slavery to sin and corruption; he accepted the form of a slave. Then being found in this corrupt, human-like condition, which we all have a share in, Christ completed the way of Adam by humbling himself even further in obedience to God by undergoing death … As God exalted Jesus, the second Adam, so Christians who suffer and die for the faith may expect to be raised to new life when the exalted Lord returns (I Thess 4:13-18). The remainder of the hymn discusses the exaltation of Jesus and his uniqueness: He has been given a name which is above every name, so that when it is pronounced the whole cosmos responds by kneeling and glorifying God the Father by confessing and praying, “Lord Jesus Christ!” It is both an invocation of the name of Jesus and a profession of who he is.”

 

The history of the Church has witnessed the blood of martyrs poured out for the faith and on behalf of others. Like Jesus Christ, they are “seeds that died” in order to bear abundant life. Indeed, we are a Church fecundated by the blood of martyrs. The following article illustrates the disciples’ intense participation in the life-giving passion of Jesus Christ   in “his death, even death on the cross” (cf. Patricia Mitchell, “A Samurai’s Noble Death: The Witness of St. Paul Miki” in The WORD Among Us, February 1 – March 8, 2011, p. 59-64).

 

Paul Miki saw sparkling Nagasaki harbor coming into view. The six-hundred-mile trek from the Japanese capital of Kyoto through the cold and snow was nearly over. It had taken almost one month. Along the road, villagers jeered at him and the others who had been sentenced to die for their Christian beliefs. “Fools”, the shouted, “Renounce your faith.” Miki, who loved to preach, urged the people to believe in Jesus, the Savior who died for their sins. Not all were insulting the prisoners, however. Fellow believers encouraged and prayed for them, giving them the strength and courage to continue on.

 

Miki thought how odd it was that he was to die before his ordination as a priest. Now thirty-three years old, he has been a Jesuit brother in training for eleven years. His eloquent and fervent preaching has led to many conversions. Yet he would never celebrate Mass; never raise the consecrated Host in his own hands.

 

Flourishing Faith: His thoughts often turned to his family. Miki had been born and raised near Kyoto in comfortable surroundings, the son of a brave samurai. A fellow Jesuit, Francis Xavier, had come to Japan forty-eight years earlier, in 1549, and his message of a loving God had won over hundreds of thousands of Japanese. Miki’s parents converted in 1568, when Paul was four. They nurtured his faith and sent him to Jesuit schools; he never doubted his vocation to the priesthood.

 

The seeds planted by Xavier flourished, but only when it suited the reigning ruler. The military leader Oda Nobunaga allowed the missionaries to preach because he wanted to challenge the power of the Buddhist monks and he was interested in foreign trade. But the next ruler, Toyotumi Hideyoshi, became nervous as more and more Japanese turned to Christ. Christianity was a religion of foreigners, very different from Buddhism or the native Shintoism, which enshrined numerous minor gods. Japan feared conquest by the West. So Hideyoshi worried: What if these foreign missionaries came not to bring their God but their soldiers?

 

Blessed Are the Persecuted: In the fall of 1596, a Spanish ship crashed into the coast of Japan. While Japanese officials confiscated its cargo, an arrogant remark by the ship’s captain was interpreted to mean that missionaries intended to help Spain conquer Japan. Hideyoshi quickly ordered the arrest of several priests and laymen who had come from the Spanish Philippines to evangelize. He was convinced that a public bloodbath would put an end to this religion of the West. Although a native, Miki was among those who would serve as Hideyoshi’s warning.

 

On the day after Christmas in 1596, police came to the Jesuit residence in Osaka, and took Miki and two other novices. In prison, they were joined by six Franciscans and fifteen members of the Franciscan third order. A week later, the prisoners were led into the Kyoto public square, where the sentence was pronounced: death by crucifixion. Miki’s heart soared. What an honor to imitate his Lord! Each man then stood by Hideyoshi’s samurai as a portion of his left ear was cut off. It was Miki’s turn, and searing pain shot through his head – the first blood to be spilled for Christ. Then the forced marked to Nagasaki began.

 

The Road to the Cross: Under a feudal lord, Nagasaki has become a Christian town, with Jesuits running schools, churches, and homes for the poor. As the caravan entered, thousands of Christians lined the streets. For the twenty-six prisoners (two more had been added to the group), it was like coming home! If Hideyoshi had intended the crucifixion to scare people away from Christianity, his plan was having the opposite effect. On the morning of February 5, Miki and the others were led up Nishizaka Hill. One side of the road, where common criminals were executed was covered with human remains; the other was covered with new, green wheat. The government official in charge of the executions had decided to give the martyrs a more decent killing field, and the wheat would be a carpet for their crosses.

 

Lying on the ground were twenty-six crosses, each one tailor-made for one of the martyrs. Seeing them, the prisoners began singing the Te Deum, the church’s traditional hymn of thanksgiving. Three youngsters in the group – thirteen-year-olds Thomas Kozaki and Anthony Deynan, and twelve-year-old Louis Ibaraki – raced ahead to find the crosses that fit their small frames. One by one, on their knees, the martyrs embraced their crosses – their way to perfection.

 

Soldiers tied them on with metal bands and ropes. Then the crosses were lifted and slid into holes in the ground – twenty-six stretching in a row from the bay to the road. The martyrs raised their eyes to heaven and sang, “Praise the Lord, ye children of the Lord.” The Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus of the Mass echoed down the hill. One of the prisoners chanted, “Jesus, Mary. Jesus, Mary”. The crowds of Christians joined in. Then, one by one, the martyrs were given a chance to renounce Christ in exchange for their lives. Each one loudly answered, “No”.

 

Song of a Samurai: Planted in front of Miki’s cross was the death sentence Hideyoshi had pronounced: “As these men came from the Philippines under the guise of ambassadors, and chose to stay in Kyoto preaching the Christian law which I have severely forbidden all these years, I come to decree that they be put to death, together with the Japanese who had accepted that law.”

 

Fastened to his cross, Paul Miki gave his defense and final address in the form of a samurai farewell song: “I did not come from the Philippines. I am Japanese by birth, and a brother of the Society of Jesus. I have committed no crime. The only reason I am condemned to die is that I have taught the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I am happy to die for such a cause and accept death as a great gift from my Lord. At this critical time, when you can rest assured that I will not try to deceive you, I want to stress and make it unmistakably clear that man can find no way to salvation other than the Christian way. The Christian law commands that we forgive our enemies and those who have wronged us. I must therefore say here that I forgive Hideyoshi and all who took part in my death. I do not hate Hideyoshi, I would rather have him and all the Japanese become Christians.”

 

The guards listened, spellbound. Miki had shown he could remain a faithful Japanese, adhere to the samurai code of honor, and still give glory to Christ. Looking to heaven, he said, “Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Come to meet me, you saints of God.” While embracing his culture and showing his warrior’s courage, he had gone beyond the samurai need to save face and avenge personal wrongs. By preaching love of enemies as his farewell, Paul Miki showed himself a faithful samurai of the greatest Lord of all.

 

The Legacy of Resurrection Hill: Two samurai guards stood at the foot of each of the crosses at either end of the line of prisoners. In one moment, each soldier plunged his steel-tipped bamboo spear into the victim’s breast, crossing over each other’s spear in the process. A guttural yell, a sudden thrust, the gush of blood. And it was over. When the gruesome deed was done, the Christians in the crowd pressed toward the crosses, soaking pieces of cloth in the martyrs’ blood and tearing their clothing for relics. Only with difficulty did the guards manage to keep them away.

 

A month later, a Jesuit missionary in Nagasaki wrote his superior that, even in death, the martyrs were still bearing witness to Christ: “These deaths have been a special gift of divine Providence to this church. Up to now our persecutor had not gone to the extreme of shedding Christian blood. Our teaching therefore had been mostly theoretical, without the corroborating evidence of dying for our faith. But now, seeing by experience these remarkable deaths and most extraordinary deaths, it is beyond belief how much our new Christians have been strengthened, how much encouragement they have received to do the same themselves.”

 

Today, some four hundred years after their deaths, the twenty-six martyrs of Nagasaki continue to inspire people. They are canonized saints now, and the place is a pilgrimage destination, with a church, museum, and bronze monument. Pope John Paul II visited the site in 1981 and named it “Resurrection Hill”.

 

On the eve of his execution, thirteen-year-old Thomas Kozaki, who was to die with his father, wrote a farewell letter to his mother. Full of simple yet steadfast faith, the power of this letter, like the power of the cross, has not diminished over the years: “Dear Mother: Dad and I are going to heaven. There we shall wait for you. Do not be discouraged even if all the priests are killed. Bear all sorrow for our Lord and do not forget you are now on the true road to heaven. You must not put my smaller brothers in pagan families. Educate them yourself. These are the dying wishes of father and son. Goodbye, Mother dear. Goodbye.”

 

 

II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART

 

  1. In the midst of persecution, do we imitate the non-violent stance of the Suffering Servant and his absolute trust in the loving God who saves?

 

  1. Do we delve deeply into the meaning of the Lord’s passion and participate fully in this saving event?

 

  1. Do imitate Christ in “his death, even death on the cross”? Are we like Christ, “seeds that died” that we may live and bring forth abundant fruits?

 

 

III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD

Leader: Loving God,

help us to delve into the meaning of Christ’s passion and death

and participate in this paschal event fully

that we may live.

Grant us the grace to imitate Jesus

in his self-emptying on the cross

that we may experience the joy of resurrection

and the glory of exaltation.

Give us the grace to live fully our Christian vocation

as “seeds that die” in order to bear abundant fruits.

We embrace Christ’s paschal itinerary in this Holy Week

and every day of our life.

May we confess with deep faith and in concrete action

that “Jesus is Lord!”

forever and ever.

Assembly: Amen.

 

 

IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD           

 

The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.

 

“He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (cf. Phil 2:8)

 

 

 

V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION

 

  1. ACTION PLAN: Pray that the Christian community may participate deeply and meaningfully in the Holy Week’s paschal celebration. That the “blood of martyrs” may continue to fecundate the Church, imitate their self-giving and especially that of Christ, in your service to the poor and needy among us.

 

  1. ACTION PLAN: That we may delve deeply into the mystery of “Christ, the seed that died”, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR: A Weekly Pastoral Tool (Year A, vol. 7, # 21).

Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang  PDDM

 

 

PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI

SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER

60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314

Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323

Website: WWW.PDDM.US

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