Palm Sunday Reflection: Re-Espousing And Anointing
Franciscan Reflections From The Hermitage – Re-Espousing And Anointing – Palm Sunday – 2024 (Mark 11:1-15:47)
The gathering of great crowds, singing together, processing together… in remembrance, we also enter into this processing to celebrate the entry of Jesus the Christ, back into Jerusalem.
Our journey through the wilderness of the desert has stripped us of all bravado, the masks have been removed, the idols exposed, and in the words of Hosea, the “re-espousal of God’s beloved” promises a new beginning, the undoing of “what was done”.
This act of universal forgiveness undoes and re-frames our pain and our longing… this is the subversion and the reversion of our consciousness. An act of Love that unfetters us from the bonds enslaving us to the sufferings of the time before ‘Now’. The false self and its addiction to the re-enactment of suffering gives way to seeing ourselves reflected in the eyes of the Lover… This is who I am!
This act of love, redemption and healing is seen reciprocated by the Beloved as Mary Magdalene anoints Jesus on behalf of us all, totally vulnerable and forgetful of self. The heart-constancy of a lifetime compressed into this single moment as the hearts of Lover and Beloved beat as one. Yesterday and tomorrow come together in this moment of Now as our hearts beat now with Jesus, beat with the Christ, and become one with the Christ beyond all the dimensions of time.
And now our hearts also resonate with Solomon’s Song of Songs “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine, your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is perfume poured out; … Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, and neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of one’s house, it would be utterly scorned.”
Transposed against this love, review today the actions of the crowd, singing exultantly, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” Yet when Jesus does not fulfil the demand for transactional gain, the call becomes equally as loud, “Let him be crucified! Let him be crucified!”
Here we see how subtle and unreflective the shift in our hearts can become when we see a person as valuable to serve us, a position or vacancy to be filled… cold, harsh, transactional and vindictive… without any true understanding.
Let the Song of Songs begin our meditation on Jesus’ act of redemptive Love. Let the humble and vulnerable act of a woman anointing the feet of Jesus move our proud hearts so that we may see our own secret motives revealed. Let us earnestly seek Truth so that He also may set that seal upon our hearts… this is the seal of love beyond death, beyond the grave.
When we experience this ‘one-ing’ with God, we also participate in this act of universal forgiveness, acknowledging the real over illusion, becoming the reality of who we were created to be with ‘I Am’.
Let us replace our wining and dining of the influential, the judges, the buyers, and the benefactors, with a true and deeper presence for those who are lonely, those rejected by society, and those considered of little or no value in the supply chain, the outsiders and all those considered “the least among us”.
As we go out into our streets, we find them everywhere. Take this time of Holy Week to be present to them, to talk to them and spend time with them, acknowledging them.
- Easter Sunday Reflection: The Way – Love Overcomes Violence & Death - March 29, 2024
- Palm Sunday Reflection: Re-Espousing And Anointing - March 22, 2024
- 5th Sunday of Lent Reflection: Return To Original Blessing - March 15, 2024
