Palm Sunday 2022

Reflection for Palm Sunday, April 10, 2022

We stand at the door of the Paschal Mystery. Today marks the first day of the holiest week in the Church year. By this time next week, we will have experienced the miracle of Jesus winning our freedom from the power of the evil one, proving that death does not have the last word. We will have recalled in a unique way the celebration of the Passover of Jesus from death to life, beginning with His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the city where the greatest act of love in the history of mankind would take place. We will have watched prayerfully, silently at the institution of the Sacraments of the Holy Eucharist and of the Priesthood. We will have knelt next to Him in the garden as He surrendered to the Will of the Father at an incalculable cost to Himself. He will have submitted to the terror of His betrayal by one of His own, His violent arrest, and a mock trial in the fullest sense of the word. We will have witnessed through the retelling of the Gospels His unjust condemnation, the torture by soldiers who were beyond heartless, and the seemingly endless journey to Calvary under the very cross that would drain His precious Life from the depths of His being. Finally, we will have stood beneath that cross and heard words of incredible mercy in the midst of the agony of death, as He poured out His unconditional love for His Mother, for the apostle John, for the criminal beside Him on Calvary and, unbelievably, for you and me, long before we could have ever sought that Love. We will have gazed on Him as He breathed forth His Spirit to the Father, and seen the world go into ‘mourning as for an only Son,’ as an early Easter homily would tell us.

And then, after the profound silence of the tomb where we would have longed to bury ourselves with Him, we will have heard the song of His Resurrection sung by the women and Peter and John who were the first to know the music of the Mystery of Death unto Life.

But, miracle of miracles, we have come to know that all of this IS, not was, beyond space and time. We are there—here—in Word and Sacrament. And we continue to live, by our Baptism, this Paschal Mystery wrought by our loving God.

I wish each of you a most blessed Holy Week, and a beautiful Easter.
God bless you.