Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday – A: 17th April, 2011

Is. 50:4-7; Ps. 21; Phil. 2:6-11; Mt. 26:14-27.66

My dear Brothers and Sisters,

With the celebration of Palm Sunday we enter into Holy Week. This week is holy because we celebrate the holy mysteries of our Christian faith. These must not be viewed as events that occurred more than two thousand years back, but events that take place today. We need therefore to get beyond the rites and touch the reality which they represent. This we will be able to do if we make this week an experience wherein we accompany Jesus on his journey from Jerusalem to Calvary with deep devotion and fervent fidelity. This is the week when we ponder the intense suffering that Jesus undergoes in the face of which he makes no resistance nor does he turn away; as he offers his back to those who strike him and does not cover his face against insult and spittle.

Palm Sunday recounts the triumphant entry of Jesus into his own city, Jerusalem. Seated on the foal of a donkey, the crowds hail him as their King as they sing “Hosannas” in his honour and acclaim him as the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee. But where were these crowds on Good Friday? Were they among those who screamed: “Crucify Him. Crucify Him. His blood be on us and on our children!” Public popularity is so precarious – as precarious as a bubble. One slight puff and it is all over! We promise this Palm Sunday to remain faithful to Jesus and to follow Him not only when it is convenient but especially when following Him means walking with Him to Calvary to be condemned and crucified. Today, given the decline if not the collapse of moral values, to live for Jesus is more demanding and difficult than to die for Him.

On that first Palm Sunday, great crowds spread their cloaks in the path on which Jesus was to ride. That was a great gesture not only of a warm welcome but even more of sublime surrender and submission. That is a gesture worth imitating and emulating. We need to welcome Jesus into our hearts and homes. We need to surrender and submit ourselves completely to Him. Jesus is the only one to whom we can surrender without losing ourselves. When we surrender ourselves to Jesus we find ourselves because what is lost for Jesus is never really lost but found at a deeper level.

This is what St. Paul teaches us in his letter to the Philippians. Jesus, though divine becomes human, though Lord becomes a slave, though all powerful becomes powerless on the Cross. He thus empties himself and in this self-emptying is filled and raised by God so that all beings in heaven, on earth and in the underworld acclaim and acknowledge Him as Lord.

Let us make this week holy by entering into the holy mysteries that we celebrate this week with faith and fervour. May we continue to follow Jesus more closely so that by following his example of suffering, we may be worthy to share in his resurrection. Amen.

[St. Tudwal Church, Barmouth – Msgr. Alex Rebello (508 Words)]