Called to Audition: You Have Been Cast

Written by Fr. John Ferone, SJ on Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

There is one drama, one story: OUR story; the story of the body of Christ as it continues to unfold in every age, and we play all the roles.  And perhaps that is why the Church in its Palm Sunday liturgy invites the congregation to participate by assuming the voices of many of the characters in the Passion narrative.

At times this is surely uncomfortable, as we take our place in a congregation which asks for Barabbas over Jesus, yells “crucify him” and asks that his blood be on us and on our children.  But in fact, if we think contemplate the text, the passion story and the story of our passions is not something foreign to us.  How many of us, like Peter, have ever been over sure of our commitment in the face of danger?  Or have denied knowing someone when they were in trouble?  How many of us, like Judas, have lost our idealism and have betrayed our mission or rebelled against the very enterprise or person that we initially felt so drawn to.  How many of us have ever accused someone falsely or scapegoated another?  How many of us have taken away another’s good name or thrown fuel to the fire through gossip?  How many of us have been a Simon of Cyrene for others and helped shoulder the burden of another?  How many of us have ever stood at the cross of someone who was helpless or sick or dying?  Or how many of us have actually been on the “other side” of the station and have known the experience of Jesus who was betrayed, mocked, abandoned, denied, helped, consoled, or accompanied in our cross, our pain, our dying?

The WAY OF THE CROSS, the way of ego deflation.  The cross is always ego deflating.  It always throws us radically into an experience of our own incapacity to save ourselves, to fix ourselves, to maintain control, to “figure it out.” It is an emptying, a kenosis, a letting go, a jumping into the hands of a merciful Father, an experience of Jesus who prayed, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”  It is a process that leads us to know personally and experientially, that in the end, the Father has the final “piece in the puzzle of our lives.”  And that it is the Father who eternally and unconditionally loves us as it was in the beginning, is NOW and ever shall be.  And that every role we play as part of the grand story, is claimed by Jesus as part of HIS story and will be taken up in glory.  For all that the Father has given him will come up to him and will be raised on the last day.

SPOILER ALERT!!!  It is a Divine Comedy, not a Divine Tragedy!  STAY TUNE TO NEXT SUNDAY!

Questions for Reflection:
As we approach this Holy Week experience, what character do you most resemble at this time?  Allow the Lord to deal with you.
When was the last time you had an “ego deflating moment?”  How did you deal with it?

**********************

Fr. John Ferone, SJ
Email: jferone@smspnewman.org