The impression made on my mind as a teenager when we studied particular parts of history is something that has stayed with me for many years. The classes that still stand out for me are the ones in which we studied the events of World War I and World War II. Photographs from those wars communicated a stark message even before we read the accompanying descriptions, a devastatating loss of life on an industrial scale.
In the mid-1990s, I had the opportunity to live in Japan for two years as a seminarian. A visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki gave a closer view of the depravation of war in the two cities that were scorched by the atomic explosions of 1945. Half a century after the war, a few survivors of the atomic explosions were still giving guided tours to children. Two years ago I visited the two cities again. Visits to the museums about the atomic explosions coincided with large numbers of people also going there due to it being the time of a national holiday. In both museums the crowds moved slowly through the exhibits in total silence. I felt that we were in some way attending the funerals of those who had lost their lives so many years earlier.
As a teeneager, the study of those world-shattering events was difficult to comprehend. However, it seemed to have brought one painful consolation, namely that humanity had learned its lesson from those wars and that there was now a belated collective understanding that war was futile and that such horrific events would never happen again. Surely, with humbling lessons learned by all people, the world would move increasingly towards a place where war was genuinely confined to increasingly remote historical records.
Unfortunately, the events of recent months are reminding us that the bitter lessons of history have not yet found a place within the collective human heart. In January, Pope Leo lamented that the world has developed a “zeal for war”, the heartwrenching acknowledgement that we have not yet learned to live as God wishes, people who can live together in peace as brothers and sisters on this planet, our common home.
It does not seem logical that humanity has endured the horrors of so many wars during the past century and is now repeating the folly, dragging itself to its knees once more with increasingly complex situations, assisted in the downward spiral by the latest technology developed by misdirected human abilities.
Palm Sunday provides us with the opportunity to see that humanity has struggled for many centuries to understand its true vocation. We were created by God’s love and we have a unique ability to love one another. Today’s celebration of Palm Sunday Mass provides us with two gospel readings, readings that are incredibly different. At the beginning of Mass, often celebrated outdoors, we listen to the joyful description of Jesus being welcomed into Jerusalem by the people who see him as a king, a king who is humble and yet joyfully accepted. Later in the liturgy, Jesus is again at the centre of attention, but this time as a person who is rejected and despised. The stark contrast in the treatment of Jesus by the crowds during the final days of his life is a reminder to us that humanity’s collective heart is hugely unpredictable and extremely volatile.
The centurion standing at the foot of the cross recognised that Jesus was the Son of God, a late observation, but one that shows us how some people are eventually able to see through the complexities of life and identify the truth. In the years after World War I and World War II, a similarly slow agreement took hold across the world, a recognition that war is a tragedy with devastating consequences. The developments of recent months bring us to the sad reality that seems to have brought us back to the events that Jesus experienced 2,000 years ago, human beings making decisions that do not seem reasonably, unaware that deciding upon the deaths of others is a massive moral issue.
As we celebrate Palm Sunday, we listen to two contrasting experiences in the lfe of Jesus, one that celebrated life and the other that brings about death. We need to accept that the same light and darkness exists within our own hearts. The division in the human heart, alluded to in the Genesis account of Adam and Eve, is a division that still exists for us all, a failure of understanding that is still leading us to choose poorly.
The necessity for divine help seems obvious. We are in need of profound assistance if we are to choose the way that brings life. It would seem that only God can bring us safely through the maze of life that surrounds us. We are in need of help. The journey from the wilderness to a new dawn cannot be done on our own. Pope Leo’s observation of humanity’s current “zeal for war” should set alarm bells ringing in our ears. Our complex world is crying out to us from the cross on Calvary, telling us that change is needed. Only by living as Jesus lived can we possibly hope to have a future that will bring peace to our world. The light of the resurrection is a light that is awaited in these fragile times.
Dan Troy lives in Hong Kong.
