ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA

Dear Friends in our Lord Jesus Christ,

Today, Palm Sunday, which we also call Passion Sunday, we proclaim the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ and begin our celebration of Holy Week. Already at the blessing of the palms we have made an effort to enter into the sentiments of Jesus. We have celebrated the initial triumph of His entry into Jerusalem, and now we are called upon to try to understand His Passion, as it leads to His definitive triumph in the Resurrection.

The word of God points out for us this morning the harsh conditions of Christ’s victory.

In our first reading from the Prophet Isaiah we see how it was prophesied that Jesus would suffer persecution. He would be beaten, ridiculed and insulted.

Our second reading recalls the profound humility of Jesus, who took on our human condition—He became man—precisely in order to bring about our salvation. He emptied Himself. He humbled Himself and accepted death, death on the cross. And Saint Paul tells us that God the Father accepted this suffering and death and raised up Christ to glory in His Resurrection.

But before we celebrate the victory of Christ’s Passion and Death, the Church wants us to retrace in detail the sufferings of Jesus, to recount all the steps He took—out of love—to redeem us.

And this is what we have just done in proclaiming the Passion of Jesus. We have accompanied Jesus. We have shared His sentiments and assumed His attitudes. We have been challenged by His love.

In the Passion narrative:

– We heard the account of the Last Supper and saw how Jesus left us the Sacrifice of His Body and Blood for the forgiveness of our sins.

– We saw how Jesus foretold His betrayal by one of His own, and we began to understand Jesus’ pain and anguish.

– We went with Jesus to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, to see how He suffered the Agony in the Garden, how He prayed, and how He renewed His resolution to accomplish the Father’s will.

– Then came the actual embrace by Judas, and Jesus was arrested. But He had time to challenge Judas and to repeat that He was enduring all His suffering with total freedom.

– Jesus was led to the house of the high priest where He was asked if He was the Messiah, the Son of the living God. His answer was so clear that the high priest said that He blasphemed.

– Afterwards Jesus was denied by Peter, who began to curse and swear that he did not know Him.

– Judas had remorse, but it turned into despair even though Judas was in the very presence of God’s mercy.

– Jesus was taken before the Sanhedrin and then to the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate. Pilate sent Him to Herold but Herod sent Him back to Pilate who then had Him scourged and handed over to be crucified.

– On the Cross Jesus gave Himself once more to His Father out of love and endured the last measure of ridicule and suffering.

– Finally Jesus died and was proclaimed the Son of God.

– He was placed in the tomb to await the day of Easter and the glory of His Resurrection.

Saint Paul fills in the rest: God highly exalted Him, having given Him the name Jesus, which means Savior, for He is the Savior of the World.

This then, dear friends, is the Church’s Palm Sunday message for us all: “...that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend...and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” Amen.