To Be Human Is to Know Vulnerability

Unbound Senior Writer/Editor Larry Livingston shares a reflection for Palm Sunday.

Before her children were sponsored through Unbound, Celina struggled to feed her family. With her baby under her arm, she’d go from door to door in her community in Honduras selling vegetables.

Today, with help from her children’s sponsors, Celina owns her own vegetable stand in the marketplace and life is better, but the memory of those early struggles motivates her to continue to help feed the hungry in her community.

People like Celina who live in poverty understand the vulnerabilities that come with being human because they contend with them on a daily basis. They know that to be human is to be weak. It’s to be limited. It’s to know hunger, sickness and pain. To be human is to deteriorate with age.

And, of course, to be human is to die. But more than that, it’s to know you will die, and that knowledge has so much to do with how one chooses to live.

“From my position I try to help someone who is in need,” Celina said. “I say, ‘With the little that I want and have for myself, I try to help.’ I don't know why, but God has put that feeling there for me.

“Since I was a little girl, I always say, ‘Why don’t people stand up for others? Why not help that person who is there in need?”

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Our human vulnerability is what Jesus chose to enter into. This is what Paul meant when he said, in his letter to the Philippians, that the Son of God "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Palm Sunday is the start of Holy Week, the most sacred time of the Church year. In the observances of this week we reflect on Jesus’ Passion and death, His ultimate act of solidarity with humanity. But it’s also good to reflect during these solemn days on what they have to teach us about life.

Jesus knew that going to Jerusalem meant His death. Everything He said and did from the time He began His public ministry put Him on a trajectory toward Calvary—every teaching, every healing and, especially, every challenge to the religious authorities. He didn’t want to die, of course, but He could not do otherwise than to live honestly and freely. That, He knew, would lead to the Cross.

To be human is to know you will die. To be Christian is to know you will live.

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To be human is to know you will die. To be Christian is to know you will live. #CatholicMom

Please pray:

Compassionate God, your love for us is deeper than we can comprehend. That love was expressed in the ultimate sacrifice of your son on the Cross. Mold us that we may emulate that love by pouring out our lives in service to the poor, the suffering and others in need. We ask this in the name of Jesus, our brother and the Lord of Life. Amen.

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