Lenten Campaign 2025
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Each year Catholics around the world will take the part of the "crowd" in the recitation of the Passion narrative that occurs on both Palm Sunday and Good Friday.
It is a yearly reminder of the role every one of us has in Jesus' crucifixion.
At the same time, it can also remind us to meditate more intentionally on the Passion narrative and to put ourselves into it, through imagining ourselves in the various roles.
Placing ourselves into the story
St. Gregory Nazianzen provides such a spiritual exercise in a homily featured by the Office of Readings. First he focuses on Simon of Cyrene and the thieves crucified on either side of Jesus:
If you are a Simon of Cyrene; take up your cross and follow Christ. If you are crucified beside him like one of the thieves, now, like the good thief, acknowledge your God.
For your sake, and because of your sin, Christ himself was regarded as a sinner; for his sake, therefore, you must cease to sin. Worship him who was hung on the cross because of you, even if you are hanging there yourself. Derive some benefit from the very shame; purchase salvation with your death.
Enter paradise with Jesus, and discover how far you have fallen. Contemplate the glories there, and leave the other scoffing thief to die outside in his blasphemy.
Next he moves on to other characters in the story, urging us to put ourselves into their places:
If you are a Joseph of Arimathea, go to the one who ordered his crucifixion, and ask for Christ's body. Make your own the expiation for the sins of the whole world.
If you are a Nicodemus, like the man who worshiped God by night, bring spices and prepare Christ's body for burial.
If you are one of the Marys, or Salome, or Joanna, weep in the early morning. Be the first to see the stone rolled back, and even the angels perhaps, and Jesus himself.
Often when we read the Bible, we can leave it as something in the past, and not something that we can take part in, or that we can put ourselves into.
It is important to read Scripture in a more living way, as we can enter into the story and discover what Jesus wants to speak to us today.
The Bible is not meant to be static but dynamic, and includes a message that God has for us in particular. One way we can listen to that message is to put ourselves into the Passion and watch the events of Jesus' death unfold before our very eyes.
