In addition to saving the world through his suffering, the Lord’s suffering gave us an example of life. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that, "the cross exemplifies every virtue." So, if we want to learn to love, to have patience, to be humble, to be obedient to God, and to despise earthly things, we need only look at the Lord in his Passion. Likewise, if we want to understand the sin of humanity, we need only look at all the other people in the Passion, except the Holy Mother of God. In the Passion narrative, we find the grievous sins of envy, violence, scapegoating, blaming, betrayal, pride, ambition for power, lying, greed, and rivalry among others.

I want to focus on just one sin today: the sin of ambition for power. A few months before his Passion, the Lord announced the rejection and suffering that he would voluntarily endure a couple of times to his disciples. St. Mark and St. Luke tell us that after one of these announcements, the disciples began to argue about who among them was the greatest. This reaction of the disciples was completely inappropriate. The Lord announced his voluntary acceptance of rejection and death. And the disciples suddenly became preoccupied with power.

It is interesting to note that St. Luke tells us something similar again in the Passion narrative. The prophecy of the Lord's Passion and Death was already being fulfilled on the night of the Last Supper. Judas had already rejected the Lord and had agreed to hand him over to the religious authorities. The meal they had shared was the sign of the fulfillment of the Lord's prophecy. His Death was to be a saving sacrifice, freely accepted by him.

Just as the Passover Lamb of Egypt, whose poured-out blood and consumed flesh protected and saved the people, so too his poured-out blood and sacrificed body on the cross would save humanity from sin. The Lord gave them bread to eat, telling them that this was truly his body, and wine to drink, telling them that this was truly his blood. The Eucharist truly is the total gift of the Lord himself. The Lord's voluntary sacrifice for our salvation is the opposite of the disciples' ambition for power.

When the Lord hears the disciples arguing among themselves about who was the greatest, the Lord tells them: "Let the greatest among you be as the youngest and the leader as the servant". Let us recall here the Gospel reading from last Sunday in which the Lord, with his silence, breaks the momentum of the negative and violent energy of the accusers of the adulterous woman. Next, the Lord, with his words, "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her," reverses that momentum of violence.

Likewise, at the Last Supper, the Lord, with his words, stops and reverses the energy of the disciples' ambition for power. The Lord's words redirect the disciples' desire toward selfless service to others. The Lord's words reorient his disciples toward the mission, the very mission the Lord shows them in his own person.

In this Eucharist of Palm Sunday, we remember the total gift of the Lord Himself. Many of us, like the disciples, do not understand the Lord's signs. The Lord's words, the Passion narrative today, are the Lord's way of addressing the momentum of our current sin, whatever it may be. The Lord's words challenge us to redirect our desire toward the Lord's mission, toward service, generosity, and personal sacrifice for the love of others.

Let us ask the crucified Lord to grant us the grace to listen to his saving Word this Holy Week and reorient our lives, following his example of generous sacrifice.