Spirituality & Faith \ Reflections
We Don’t Need To Be A Christian To Be A Big Bully
My 1st Palm Sunday experience and reflections…
I visited…
I visited a Parish church.
It was my 1st Palm Sunday. I couldn’t find any Palm leaves. I held no Palm leaves in my hands. I felt weird. I saw people took extras.
Okay, maybe they needed more — one for the main door, their windows, for their rooms, office table, and so on.
The gigantic and resounding voice of my Franciscan father-priest echoed through the main hall. He began the mass.
The father was a man of charisma — magnetic to others. He seemed to carry the charism of St. Padre Pio — the Capuchin priest.
Everyone waved their Palm leaves into the air. The rustling sound of the Palm leaves made the atmosphere vibrant. Spiritually vibrant.
Perhaps the father saw me looked lost or awkward. He sprinkled a generous amount of Holy Water onto my face.
I laughed. I was uplifted. Yeah. Palm Sunday was a happy day, wasn’t it?
In the mid of the mass, the Holy Spirit nudged my heart. The smirk of those who dislike Jesus also reached my thoughts.
Wait till a week later, Lissa…You would see how situation changed, drastically.
That was what my heart whispered.
I travelled…
I travelled back to those days — the time of Jesus — reading his story via the Bible. I saw the episodes…
Palm Sunday was a celebration where the Jews and whoever lived cheered happily. They welcomed Jesus who rode on the donkey. It was an extravagant entrance — perhaps like the crowd in Taylor Swift concert.
Now, imagine this. Within a week of celebration, people’s hearts turned different — cold, stonehearted and heartless.
Just within a week!
It took a person’s slander to turn everyone against Jesus. I saw he did no wrong.
- I saw a man who envied Jesus for proclaiming to be the King of Jews. That man, if I had read correctly, was a religious Jewish Rabbi.
- And I saw another man, who became an accomplice to that Rabbi’s jealousy or dissatisfaction — Judas Iscariot.
Judas sold out Jesus over 30 pieces of silver.
I thought of him as a guy who loved money. Money was his heartbeat. And it didn’t last. He lost his life by suicide out of guilt.
It was a smart move that Judas Iscariot kissed Jesus, so that the soldiers knew who, exactly, to chain.
I pondered…
I pondered how fast it was for the people of Jesus’ time, to dislike him in just a week.
Wouldn’t it be nothing strange these days, that we also had a change of heart so easily?
And when I pondered over the 14 stations of the cross, each station would tell me deeper lessons. Maybe, I would share in other stories.
No wonder my late Spiritual Director said to me “All these tribulations had been spelled out in the Holy Books thousands of years ago. Way before you were born, God already spoke.”
He was a Muslim.
From the Bible, what was it that I saw from the slander Jesus faced?
Bad attitude, especially in a toxic environment, began with a heart filled with surmounting evil. And this evilness began its work with the support from another bad intended heart.
Could this be similar to our life today? Yes.
Let’s say:
Some of us lived part of our lives in a toxic family.
Parents who bore grudges with our aunties and uncles, used their children as a tool for competition and to show-off.
One relative began the story. Someone else supported the story. The tribulation began.
There I gave you the clear example — similar to the Jewish Rabbi and Judas Iscariot — who had Jesus crucified.
Remember that it took 2 hands to clap — either for good or bad. This moment Catholics re-enacted yearly were for a great purpose.
One of them? To choose.
Yes, choose who we wanted to be. Choose who we would clap for — good or bad.
My late dad used to say…
When I was young, perhaps not too long ago, my behavior or attitude was monitored by my dad.
May God bless his soul and grant him perpetual peace and eternal rest. Amen.
Any moment my siblings and I were called for punishment or penance, Dad said to me personally:
“It makes you no different from the Jew who betrayed Jesus when you allow hatred sown into your heart. Choose whose attitude you would follow.”
I didn’t know well about religious studies when I was younger. I didn’t know who Jesus was. I heard of the all the Prophets’ names. Not their stories.
Whenever my dad cautioned me about being like Judas, I feared.
Although my dad wasn’t a believer of Jesus in the way of Christian, he knew stories of the past people. He wanted me to learn lessons from the past.
Love…
I thought along the line of Love. My late dad found it easier to advise me as I was an apple in his eyes — most favorite and beloved.
He lived and died as a Muslim.
The point was, when you felt loved, you would listen. Eagerly.
To my Catholic brothers and sisters…I’d long convinced that we would listen to our father-priests too, if we loved them just as Jesus loved us.
Why was there a drastic change within a week from Palm Sunday to that day Jesus was battered badly, crucified and died?
Not was it for the Will of God be done, only. It was to tell us about Love. In the absence of Love, we would forget what being a human meant.
St Luke once said…
I loved to end this reflection, my very first experience of Palm Sunday to that of Good Friday, with a beautiful reminder from St Luke.
“…Where you keep your treasure, there your heart is.”
Judas lived with the love of money. His treasure led him to betray Jesus. Yes. That was what I noticed the guilt that took him, and his life ended.
What was it that made you live?
And hidden in the journey of Jesus’s life wasn’t just purely being a religion per say. As my late Spiritual Director once said to me: Everything had been written thousands of years ago in all the Holy Books.
If only we make time to ponder over these…
Good night.
Love, Lissa
