A Homily for Passion Sunday

+ The acrimonious dispute between Our Lord and the Jews descends into grave accusations and potential violence in this morning’s Gospel: “Now we know that you have a demon…” the Jews exclaim, as “they [take] up stones to throw at him…” This dispute is about the Truth—it is about who Jesus of Nazareth in fact is. And in reality, it is no wonder that the Jews were ready to stone a young man who dared, in the very Temple itself, to claim that “before Abraham was, I am.” It is unheard of in its audacity. Indeed, it is utterly blasphemous—unless it is true.

The Sacred Liturgy of Passiontide relives this dramatic clash over who this Jesus of Nazareth is. How dare He claim to be the unique Son of God! How can he, a carpenter’s son, be the Christ of God sent to save His people? He must be wrong. He must be lying—a man of iniquity. Yet, He maintains His stance. There appears to be no end to His arrogance.

Throughout these intense days the Church cries out to God to vindicate the Truth in the words of the psalmist, as we have sung in this morning’s Introit, Gradual and Tract. “Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people; from deceitful and unjust men deliver me!” “Deliver me, O LORD, from my enemies! I have fled to thee for refuge! Teach me to do thy will…” “‘Sorely have they afflicted me from my youth,’ let Israel now say—'Sorely have they afflicted me from my youth,’ yet they have not prevailed against me.”

There is no doubt that these anguished cries of the psalmist prefigure the Passion of Our Lord. However, they are also the prayer of the Church today. They are your prayer as they are mine and as they are the prayer of the whole Church of God on this Passion Sunday 2025. For just as Our Lord suffered for insisting on the Truth of His person and mission, so to the One True Church He founded suffers down to this day for insisting on this Truth in a world riddled with the spiritual, moral and doctrinal cancers of relativism and syncretism.

At this very time there are Catechumens around the world preparing for the cleansing Truth of Baptism at Easter who are in fear of their own families because of their utter rejection of it. There are Catholics in parts of the world who may not openly practice their faith, or even wear a religious symbol in public or in their workplace, so that the product of rationalism—the god of secularism—or the false gods worshipped by other religions, may be duly appeased. These societies—distant and near—would not hesitate to crucify Our Lord anew were he to stand in their public squares and proclaim the Truth in them just as they do not hesitate to persecute those who witness to Him today.

So too, there are those in authority throughout the world whose sole ‘truth’ is that which is politically expedient according to the governing ideology of the moment. Hence the Truth about the inviolability of innocent human life is relativised through the promotion of a culture of death that now kills the elderly as well as the young and increasingly anyone who simply wants to end their life. The Truth about the nature of men and women and about human sexuality is relativised by what is euphemistically called ‘gender reordering’ and by the application of the once-sacred term “marriage” to any union kind of union people wish to enter. Contradicting these falsehoods is considered a heinous crime that is loudly decried and is as mercilessly punished, just as was Our Lord Himself.

Even in Christ’s own Church we increasingly experience the sacrifice of Truth on the altar of ideology, as process replaces revelation and the worship of contingent policies seeks to block the arteries that convey to us the very life of Christ handed on in her traditional worship and teaching. Priests who oppose this falsification of the Faith are ‘cancelled’ just as Our Lord was crucified, whilst the rightful concerns of lay men and women who seek the fulness of the Truth the Church was founded to convey for themselves and for their children are marginalised or ignored. Ambitious clerics pursue power as ruthlessly as might any politician and do not hesitate to abuse it and those under their authority as might any Ceasar.

Rightly, then, do we cry out in the liturgy of Passiontide: “Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people; from deceitful and unjust men deliver me!” If we ourselves are in the happy situation to be free from such evils at present, let us use our freedom to pray all the more earnestly for those many who are not.

At matins this morning, St Leo the Great reminded us that as long as piety is alive, persecution will not be lacking: we must take up our Cross and follow Our Lord—that is the substance of daily perseverance in Christian life. And yet, as unjustly as Crosses may be laid upon us, and no matter how they may press us down, they are but a conduit—a path. For so long as we are faithful to Christ, who has carried the Cross before us, and who carries our crosses with us, our cries for justice shall be heard and we shall enjoy the ultimate victory that is His that we shall celebrate with great solemnity on Easter day—a foretaste of which we are offered in this, and every, Holy Mass to sustain us along the way. +