Deepening our relationship with God
During Holy Week, the most sacred time of our Church year, we celebrate the Mystery of Christ’s cross, death and resurrection. We remember Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem. While the applause of many in the crowd will quickly turn to cries of “crucify him,” some will remain faithful and come to delight in the glory of the Resurrection.
Luke characterizes Jesus as a prophet, “Mighty in word and deed,” whose message is an invitation to change one’s life and abide by God’s rule. Jesus proclaims how God’s salvation breaks across all our humanly created boundaries.
Just as Jesus did, we too must lay down our lives freely by actively participating in the Holy Week liturgy. In doing so, we are allowing Jesus to forgive us our sins, to heal the wounds in us caused by our sins and the sins of others and to transform us more fully into the image and likeness of God. Enabling us to live the divine life we received at Baptism.
Fully participating in the Holy Week liturgy will deepen our relationship with God, increase our faith and strengthen our lives as disciples of Jesus.
But, Holy Week can become “holy” for us only if we actively and consciously take part in all of the liturgy this week. During this week of passion each of us is called to remember the Christ of Calvary and then to embrace and lighten the burden of the Christ whose passion continues to be experienced in the hungry, the poor, the sick, the homeless, the lonely and the outcast.
Today’s liturgy combines two contrasting moments of glory and suffering – the welcoming of Jesus in Jerusalem and the drama of his trial ending in his crucifixion.
The first of today’s gospel describes the royal reception Jesus received from his admirers, who paraded with him for a distance of two miles: from the Mount of Olives to the city of Jerusalem. Over two million people were normally present to celebrate the Jewish feast of the Passover. Jesus permitted this royal procession for two reasons: to reveal to the general public that he was the promised Messiah, and to fulfill the prophecies of Zechariah and Zephaniah: “Rejoice heart and soul, daughter of Zion…. see now your king comes to you; he is victorious, triumphant, humble and riding on a donkey…” (Zech. 9:9).
During the time of Jesus, nearly 25,000 lambs were sacrificed during the feast of the “Pass Over,” but the lamb, which was sacrificed by the High Priest, was taken to the Temple in a procession four days before the main feast day. On that first Palm Sunday, Jesus, the true Paschal Lamb, was also taken to the Temple in a large procession.
Our present tradition of the “Palm Sunday Procession” began in the fourth century A.D. when the bishop of Jerusalem led the procession from the Mount of Olives to the Church of the Ascension.
In the second part, we hear the Passion of Christ according to Luke. We are challenged to examine our own lives in the light of some of the characters in the story like Peter who denied Jesus, Judas who betrayed him, and Pilate who acted against his conscience and condemned Jesus to death on the cross.
Do we welcome Jesus into our hearts? Am I ready to surrender my life to Him during this Holy Week and welcome him into all areas of my life as my Lord and Savior?
Today, as part of the Divine Liturgy we receive palm branches. Let’s take them to our homes and place them where they can be seen.
Let the palms remind us that Christ is the king of our families, that Christ is the king of our hearts, that He is the only true answer to our quest for happiness and meaning in our lives. And if we do proclaim Christ as our king, let’s make time for Him in our daily life; let us be reminded that He is the one with whom we will be spending eternity.
Jesus invites each of us to journey with Him in the events of the Passion, so that after Calvary we may come to live in the hope of resurrection. Only when we begin to recognize the depth of God’s love, revealed in Christ, will we become faithful followers.
Are you willing to follow Jesus . . . not just to church but also in your daily life? Are you willing to entrust yourself to him even when the future is frightening or confusing, believing God has a plan? Are you willing to serve him until that day when his plan on earth is fulfilled?
In 1969 Pope Paul VI removed the distinction between Passiontide and the general season of Lent, giving Palm Sunday the official full name of “Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord” and making what had been the First Sunday in Passiontide simply the Fifth Sunday in Lent. The entire week beginning with the fifth Sunday of Lent was often called Passion Week prior to the calendar reform, which officially transferred that term to the following week; yet, as in the case of Palm Sunday, most Roman Catholic continue to refer to the last week before Easter by its original name: Holy Week; indeed, this is the term employed in the Sacramentary and Lectionary of the Roman Catholic Church.