April 13th, 2025: Palm Sunday Homily

Eddy was the youngest of nine brothers. From the time he was about eight years old, his oldest brother began to abuse him in the basement of their home. There was a picture of Jesus hanging on the wall, and Eddy would pray again and again that the abuse would stop. However, it continued for about two years, until his brother finally moved out of the house.

Because of that experience, Eddy began to believe that Jesus didn’t hear his prayers—or that God didn’t care about the abuse he was suffering.

Over the next several years, Eddy found himself caught in a cycle of alcohol and drug abuse that lasted into his twenties. That’s when he finally reached out and got help.

In recovery, all the painful memories of his childhood came rushing back, including his deep belief that he had been abandoned by God. It was a long and difficult journey, but he eventually came to terms with what had happened and was able to forgive his brother.

Along the way, Eddy also came to a powerful realization: God had not abandoned him during those years. Rather, God was with him through it all. Though God was silent, He was not absent. The abuse did eventually end, just as Eddy had prayed. And God also intervened later in his life to pull him out of the downward spiral of addiction.

That realization—that he had not been abandoned by God—made it possible for Eddy to make peace with his past and help others who have undergone similar experiences.

All of us who have suffered in any way have had to face the same difficult questions: Why does God remain silent when we are in pain? Why does He seem so distant when we need Him most?

These are questions that Jesus Himself experienced, as we hear in today’s Gospel. On the night before He died, He prayed fervently to the Father, asking that the cup of suffering be taken away. His heart must have been heavy with grief and pain as He saw His friend Judas betray Him, and Peter deny Him. Then He endured false accusations, the scorn of religious leaders, and finally, the cruel abuse of Roman soldiers and the jeers of the crowd as He hung on the cross.

Jesus experienced the bitter pain of loneliness and abandonment in the midst of excruciating suffering. He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

Jesus knew what it was to suffer. He knew the silence of the Father in the face of pain. He knew what it felt like to be abandoned by God.

And yet—it was precisely for this reason that Jesus came among us. He did not come to eliminate all suffering. He didn’t come to explain why suffering is necessary. Instead, He came to be with us in our suffering—to accompany us, to walk by our side. He came so that we might know that God suffers alongside us and never abandons us, even when He seems silent and far away.