Kent Beausoleil, S.J.

Homily – Palm Sunday 2008

We are lead, not only this night, but during this week, on a journey with Jesus that is filled with moments of extreme excitement, sorrow, and jubilation. The stories, rituals, symbols all work together to heighten this emotional experience. They ask our hearts to join in on these emotions, to feel fully every aspect of Christ's passion. Yet, sometimes, words can get in the way of our emotions, and so, thank God, my words will be shorter tonight. And although we hear the Lord's passion read tonight, this feast day's is really about Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem and so we rightfully start this week with emotions of joy, as there will be enough time for sorrow later.

In my prayer over this day, one image helped me connect to the emotional power of this Palm Sunday jubilation – roller coaster riding. Call me a geek. Call me crazy. Charge me with an overactive imagination, but an interesting fact about me, one that a lot of people don't know, is that I am a roller-coaster fanatic. Now I have yet to go to King's Island and ride The Beast, but I did grow up living a mile away from Six Flags Great America outside of Chicago. And to tell the truth, I have probably been on each of the roller coasters there at least a 100 times. I guess what I like the most of riding roller coasters is the sense of anticipation, excitement, and exultation, that happens in the heart and gut as one climbs that first hill. The clack, clack, clack of the chain as it pulls the cars up and up – and the emotions that come with each inch up that first hill, the excitement that builds and is felt in the quickening beat, beat, beat of the heart.

We can tap into this Palm Sunday Jubilation, that excitement and exultation, when we recall these emotions in the simple and grand experiences of life. For those of us who are sports minded or musically inclined, we can, for example, feel excitement and joy through our talents and gifts. Every time we score a point, shoot a goal, make a touchdown, or learn to master an instrument and play passionately a complex score, we experience the exhilaration of success, the pride from hard work and accomplishment, and the jubilation of our athleticism our creativity. Within the many graced ways we are family – jubilation! Our hearts swell with joy, for example, as we look on the face of a newborn. We glory at a child's first words and first steps. We glow when we are told how we are loved by our sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, and our sisters or brothers.

As someone who is bound by the vows of chastity (see I even have trouble saying the word), this example leaves me a bit jealous. But for those of us who are dating, or for those married or about to be married among us, when we hear the word 'Yes' in romance or in love, yes to a date, or yes to a life-long commitment, we feel the warmth of intimate connection and our heart's soar. For those who labor in commerce, when the recognition of a job well done leads to praise, promotion, or increased pay, we exhilarate at the feeling of pride. So, like the crowds outside of Jerusalem then there are times in life where we lift high and wave our own branches of jubilation, feeling in our hearts the excitement of a life filled with wondrous things.

And so this day we are presented with the joyful beginning of the end of Jesus' journey. We can connect more deeply, through our lives, then, and our life of faith, these Hosanna emotions. As the hooves of the colt and the ass clack, clack, clack on the road of Jesus' emotional journey, we experience, like the start of a roller coaster, the beginning of great things. Jesus, the Messiah, humbly enters the holy city, humbly enters into our heart this day amidst shouts of Hosanna. Our hearts, have heard the stories of healing, of giving sight to the blind, of empowering the lame with the ability to walk again, of restoring people to new life, and indeed our hearts exult. We have heard the words of Jesus pierce our hearts, words of mercy and forgiveness, his charge in the beatitudes, his call to love God as well as our neighbor as ourselves, his words of prayer that have become our prayer, and excitement wells up within us.

As Jesus preaches God's undying love as new covenant, as Jesus reveals God's saving love for all, as Jesus witnesses to the reality of the reign of God, a reign which will not ever die, and in which we will be co-heirs, our soul soars. In Jesus then and in his witness to God's undying love, and in concert with the crowds outside of Jerusalem we lift high and wave our own branches of jubilation, feeling in our hearts the excitement of a life in Christ that is filled with wondrous things.