Palm Sunday – A

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, peace be with you. I would like to welcome you to our Holy Week reflections as we begin with Palm Sunday – this beautiful week in the life of our Lord and in salvation history, where our redemption is wrought and salvation is offered to us. And what we are going to notice throughout this week, leading up to Holy Thursday, is that from Palm Sunday right through Holy Wednesday, on each of those days—Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday—Jesus will be coming in and out of Jerusalem with his apostles.

They will be traveling from a place called Bethany. And in Bethany, we know that there was the household of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus (cf. Jn 11:1–2), whom he had just raised from the dead (Jn 11:43–44), which caused this commotion and this total indignation on the part of the Jewish authorities and leaders who, in their jealousy, began to conspire to put Jesus to death (Jn 11:53), in their twisted idea of how he was corrupting the people with false teaching, being unable to discern the truth that he was bringing into the world.

And so they are making this journey from Bethany to Jerusalem every day beginning on Palm Sunday. They go in in the morning, they come back out in the evening (cf. Mt 21:17; Mk 11:11). And why is this so important? It is so important because it echoes the visions and the prophecies of the prophet Ezekiel.

We recall that Ezekiel saw in a vision the glory of the Lord departing from the temple, leaving the Holy of Holies by way of the eastern gate (Ez 10:18–19; 11:22–23). Why did the Lord leave? Because of the corruption in the temple (Ez 8:6, 17–18). And what we are going to see on Monday of Holy Week is that the Lord will purify the temple (Mt 21:12–13). He will restore it to its original glory, but more importantly, he will declare that the true temple, now the true place of worship, is in the heart of Christ himself: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19).

And so what happens in this vision of Ezekiel? The Lord leaves through the eastern gate, borne by the cherubim (Ez 10:19). And when Ezekiel is distressed, as if to say, Lord, where are you going? Do not abandon us—God promises that he will return (cf. Ez 43:1–5). For the same way he left toward the east, he will return from the east.

And so what is happening with Jesus and the apostles moving from Bethany to Jerusalem every day in Holy Week? He is coming from the east each time. So we have this very real sense of prophecy being fulfilled in a vivid and beautiful way by our Lord, riding on a donkey on Palm Sunday, entering in all humility into this week of sorrow, this week of torment, this week of agony on behalf of all of us, out of great love for us, wanting to open up the gates of heaven (cf. Heb 10:19–20). And what a mission it will be. But we know that the Father is always with him (cf. Jn 16:32).

And so we see in the readings, first in the procession with the palms, the Gospel reading from Gospel of Matthew, chapter 21: “When Jesus and the disciples drew near Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives” (Mt 21:1). Now Bethphage is different from Bethany. Bethphage was a small village closer to Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives.

And in this Gospel for the procession, we hear yet another prophecy from the prophet Zechariah: “Say to Daughter Zion, behold, your king comes to you meek and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden” (Zech 9:9; Mt 21:5). So people, seeing him coming from the east, riding on a donkey, begin to hail him as the Messiah.

“The crowds preceding him and those following kept crying out and saying, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest’” (Mt 21:9). And “when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was shaken and asked, ‘Who is this?’ And the crowds replied, ‘This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee’” (Mt 21:10–11).

My brothers and sisters, imagine the great joy that was happening, knowing that the miracle worker—the one who could raise the dead (Jn 11:43–44), give sight to the blind (Jn 9:1–7)—was also the one who revealed that God is a tender Father (cf. Mt 6:9; Lk 15:20), and that there is a place beyond our imagination that awaits us (cf. Jn 14:2–3). This was the one who was riding into Jerusalem that day.

And then in the Mass, we have the first reading from the prophet Isaiah, again another prophecy of what he will go through this week: “I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting” (Is 50:6). “The Lord God is my help; therefore I am not disgraced” (Is 50:7). My brothers and sisters, the Father did not abandon Jesus in his greatest hour, but was with him (cf. Jn 16:32)—a unity so profound that his heart beat in perfect communion with the Son as he endured his passion for us.

In the second reading, we go deeper into this humility of Jesus, who is God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, who humbles himself. And in the words of Saint Paul to the Philippians: “Though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (Phil 2:6–7). And we are going to see that play out in full drama throughout this week—how he becomes a servant to us (cf. Mk 10:45), laying down his life for his friends (Jn 15:13), so that our sins could be forgiven.

And then, of course, we have the long Gospel reading which begins with the betrayal. On the night he was betrayed (cf. Mt 26:20–25; Lk 22:21–23), Jesus took bread into his hands, broke it, gave thanks, and gave it to his disciples (cf. Mt 26:26–28), ushering in the New Covenant. It was an act of betrayal that set into motion the events from the Last Supper, through the Garden of Gethsemane (Mt 26:36–46), all the way to Easter Sunday and beyond.

Our Lord, who knew that he would be betrayed—“One of you is about to betray me” (Mt 26:21). As we enter into Holy Week, my brothers and sisters, let us unite our hearts with the Lord.

Let us spend time in silence before the Blessed Sacrament, remaining with him throughout this ordeal (cf. Mt 26:38–40). How would we have reacted? Where would we have run when the apostles fled (Mt 26:56)? Would we have run? Most likely. Would we have stayed with him? Who knows? Only the Lord knows our hearts.

Ask yourself in prayer: where do you fit into this greatest story ever told—the story of our salvation (cf. Heb 2:3), the story which leads us to everlasting life (Jn 3:16)?