“When we trust in God He will transform us into the person we know we should be.”
It has been said that mankind has only ever had one problem; we want to be like God. Which is another way of saying we have trust issues. The Catechism tells us that all sin is grounded in disobedience toward God and lack of trust in His goodness.
Perhaps it is difficult for us to trust God because we find it difficult to trust other people. We all have friends, family, or loved ones who have let us down when we were counting on them. As a result we are wounded when people we trust fail us in matters big or small. And to avoid being wounded again we begin to build walls around our hearts to protect ourselves. The problem is that those walls can keep God out of our hearts as well.
We know that we can trust God because God has proven to us that He is trustworthy. When our first parents chose to disobey God, they lost the grace they were created with. They changed their very nature and were no longer fit to walk with God in paradise. From them we have inherited our fallen nature.
But even then, in the very beginning, God promised us that this would not be a permanent state. God promised that He would send a savior who would free us from the darkness of corruption and the enslavement to sin.
A Promise Fulfilled
Today, on Passion Sunday, we recall the Passion and death of Our Lord because it is through these events that God has fulfilled His promise to us. The suffering of Jesus Christ won for us a definitive victory over sin and hopelessness. We bear palm branches today as a symbol of that victory.
Our relationship to God is always spoken of in terms of family and covenant. A covenant is a family bond. A marriage for example is covenant between two families. Through Jesus, God establishes a new covenant with us. In this covenant God has promised that he will never abandon us. No matter what we do, if we are willing to turn back to Him, He will always be ready to receive us in mercy, and forgiveness, and love. If we reject Him, scourge Him, crown Him with thorns, betray Him and crucify Him, He will continue to love us.
When we trust in God He will transform us into the person we know we should be.
This week ahead is unlike any other week of the year. This week lets us renew our trust in God, it lets His truth heal our wounds and renew our lives. Let us reach out to our wounded brothers and sisters. Through our words and our deeds let us be living images of Christ’s Passion to those around us. Let us shoulder our neighbor’s burdens, bear their crosses, and speak openly of Christ and the meaning of His Passion.
Let us carry our palm branches everywhere we go and celebrate the victory of Christ’s love.
“Fear no more, O daughter Zion; see, your king has come.”
Pax Vobiscum
Passion Sunday