Christ Jesus emptied himself to the point of dying on a cross. Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord that we observe today marks the beginning of the Holy Week celebrations, the climax of the Lenten season. The Lenten observances that we have been keeping since Ash Wednesday have been meant to ready us for the celebration of the great mysteries of our redemption that will be commemorated during the Easter Triduum (Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday). Our redemption came at a price (cf. I Corinthians 6:20), that price being the self-offering of God’s only begotten Son. In the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, our freedom was purchased. It is a freedom that enables us, not to do what we want, but rather to live as children of God and imitators of him who unselfishly gave himself for our salvation.  For it is only by imitating Jesus that we can regain the image and likeness of God in us that we lose through our inclination to sin.
Our journeying with Jesus during the Lenten period has been meant to help us be ready for a worthy celebration of the mysteries of our salvation, that is, we being given the opportunity to regain our true identity as those created in the image and likeness of the Creator. For unlike the other creatures of the universe, God gifted the human person with a capacity for the ‘other.’ The human person was not created for the self. He/she was created as a relational being and inserted into a community comprising of fellow creatures and the Creator. The human person was not to step outside this relational web for it is only as part of this communion can he/she thrive and attain his/her potential. However, the human person chose to walk away from this communion by disregarding the ‘other.’ And insofar as men and women continue to disregarded the other, their true identity eludes them. A human person’s true identity is realized in the ‘other’ for he/she is ‘other-oriented.’ The mystery of our redemption that we celebrate during the holy week is that of our being set free in order to regain our identity as beings who are ‘other-oriented.’
Becoming ‘other-oriented’ calls upon us to make our own the mind of Christ Jesus…who emptied himself in order to be of service to the ‘other’ (cf. Phil 2:5ff, the second reading for today). Being ‘other-oriented’ is all about service. Service begins with the emptying of the self, that is, putting away and letting go of attitudes and behaviors that can hinder my being there for my brothers and sisters. Emptying the self for service cannot take place without humility (lowering the self), for in order to serve, one has to come to a level that is lower than the one he/she is serving, so to speak. This is what St. Paul is asking of the Philippians even as he urges them to take Christ Jesus as their model. Jesus’ mission took him to the lowliest of the lowly – the despised and looked down upon, those considered sinners and scum of the earth (the ‘untouchables’) – and he ministered to them with love and care. In addition to letting go of his divinity, he also refused to pick up the values of his society that would have seen him despise those whom society branded as ‘lower’ than him. Instead, he chose to come down and assume their lowly nature for only in doing so could he raise them up.
Our Lenten observances of prayer, almsgiving, and fasting have had as their aim the emptying of ourselves of the attitudes that prevent us from assuming the position of our brothers and sisters in order to love them as we love ourselves. We have sought to empty ourselves of pride, anger, jealousy, selfishness, unforgiving hearts, hatred, indifference, and all the things that puff us up. For unless we enter into the Holy Week with emptied selves, we cannot be able make our own the sacred celebrations that conclude our Lenten journey. Unless we wrap ourselves with the cloak of humility as Jesus did, we cannot accompany him as he makes his final entry into Jerusalem in order to make the ultimate self-offering on behalf of his brothers and sisters.