Today's feast a an excellent example of someone "going from hero to zero." Jesus is welcomed into Jerusalem by a festive crowd who continue to rejoice in the cleansing of the temple and Jesus' confrontations and victories over the Jewish authorities and the Pharisees. Then, by Friday of that same week Jesus has a crowd baying for his blood: "Crucify him!". It is apparent from his ministry that Jesus knew how to read character. He would have known that the welcome into Jerusalem was not going to last yet he went through the process of fulfilling prophecy nevertheless. Christians, the media and elsewhere, can be feted and at other times, more often, excoriated. Our job is not to seek public praise but to be loyal to the one who is the "pioneer" (Heb 2: 10) of our salvation. The story of his Passion is ultimately our story since where the head has gone the members will follow. St Paul exhorts the Philippians to identify with Christ and be formed by him: "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to he point of death, even death on a cross." (Phil 2: 5-8) The Church hopes that Catholics throughout the world have been formed by their Lenten journey so that they are brought to identify with their Lord and be of the same mind as him.
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