Palm Sunday 

There’s something disorienting about Mass on Palm Sunday. When we arrive to church we are handed palm branches. The liturgy begins with the gospel. The Passion Narrative is read with the whole congregation’s participation, all of us kneeling in silence when Jesus expires on the cross. It’s tempting most Sundays to experience the Mass on autopilot. But that’s not possible on Palm Sunday. Bishop Erik Varden writes that this is fitting, since the city of Jerusalem was shaken out of its normal routine when Our Lord entered it that day. “We read of people in a state of feverish expectation thronging the narrow alleys of Jerusalem. We can imagine the noise and commotion, the smells. The air must have vibrated with tension. The procession had a political dimension; at any rate it lent itself to being politically exploited. Anything could happen.” There, in the midst of the chaos, “a calm figure advances, seated on a donkey. To Him we must raise our gaze.” 

For three years, Christ Jesus ministered to the people. He came to be with us, to live among us, healing us, teaching us, even raising our dead. And yet, in a matter of days, the jubilation of Palm Sunday would dissipate, revealing darkness in the human heart. Varden writes: “There’s a hidden violence glowing within us. We feel humiliated by benevolence; we wish to strike off another’s extended hand. We have a weird urge to sabotage goodness, even if thereby we ruin our own happiness…. [Christ’s] strengthening words will be repaid to Him with blows, insults, and spittle.” But, he continues, “the Man on the donkey is not a mere individual, a lone heroic figure. He is the Image of the invisible God (Col 1:15), the image in which we were made. He structures the universe and gives it meaning.” And throughout the events of Holy Week, which begin with His entrance into the Holy City, the Incarnate Lord takes upon Himself all our experiences, making them visible to us. “When we contemplate Christ in His Paschal mystery, we also see ourselves. Our humiliation and grief are contained in His oblation. Our sin is the burden He carries, unseen though symbolically present in the crown of thorns. Also the good that, by grace, lives in us, our hopes and best aspirations, are carried by Him through annihilation into eternal life.” 

The disorientation we experience on Palm Sunday is important. It shakes us out of our normal routine, forcing us to shut off autopilot and put our hands on the controls, recognizing that this Holy Week is not the observance of an anniversary of something that happened 2000 years ago. “It is the distillation of the human condition. During these days we are handed the key to unlock the riddle of existence, including our own existence.” Because we are personally implicated in the events of Holy Week, I invite you to allow your lives to be disrupted in the days ahead by the special liturgies of the Triduum, to contemplate with openness of heart and mind the One who reveals to us what we are all about. 

posted 3/23/24