This morning I woke up with a question on my mind, maybe you’ve wondered this too: “Why do we read the Passion on Palm Sunday, at the beginning of Holy Week? It’s called Palm Sunday after all. Why not just read the Gospel of the Lord’s entrance into Jerusalem at the normal Gospel time on Palm Sunday, and leave the Passion story for Good Friday? Why are we reading about the events of Good Friday today?
There are a number of reasons I could think of.
One reason, perhaps, is that for many Catholics, Palm Sunday might be the only time they hear the Passion read, since the Good Friday liturgy is often held during workday hours, you might not be able to get to Church on Friday. Friday isn’t a Holy Day of Obligation, and so, placing the Passion on Sunday, provides the opportunity for the greatest number of Catholics to hear the Passion read at Church.
Another reason is that it’s kind of a preview. We begin the week with the end in mind. We reading the Passion today so that we can ponder it all week. I recommend reading Matthew’s Gospel and Luke’s Gospel this week, and especially John’s Gospel on Friday, if you can’t come to Church on Good Friday.
But, the other reason for reading the Passion on Palm Sunday, gets to the heart of the matter. As we enter into Holy Week, where better to start than at the cross—at the heart of the greatest act of love the world could ever know.
Unlike those who call for Christ to come down from the cross, we ponder his cross all week. For it is from the Cross that God’s love for us is most fully manifested. Greater love has no one than this, than he who lays down his life for a friend. We begin Holy Week with this image of love, so that we know that it is love that motivates Jesus throughout all this week’s events.
He gives us the Eucharist on Holy Thursday out of love. He washes his disciples feet out of love. He goes to the garden and experiences agony, and sweats blood out of love. He allows himself to be betrayed by Judas, arrested, scourged at the pillar, crowned with thorns, burdened by the cross out of love. He takes the sins of the whole world upon himself out of love. He allows himself to have nails driven through hands and feet, out of love. There is no greater love than this, and we begin this week, knowing that all that he does, and all that he suffers, you does out of love for you and for me, and for all people of all places of all times.
It is by the cross that God shows us the depths of love. It is by the cross that God teaches us how to love. And it is this image of love that needs to be burned into our minds and burned into our hearts, as it has been burned into our souls through baptism. So many sins are committed throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout our lives—so much division and hatred and violence and unjust is committed—because we forget how much God loves us.
Keep your eyes fixed on Him this week, and he will reveal his heart to you. You will come to know how the Lord is with you in the crosses of your life: in the cross of a difficult marriage, or the grief of widowhood, the cross of loneliness, the cross of financial struggle, the cross of temptations of the flesh. Don’t call for him to come down off the cross. Let him show you, that as you contemplate the Lord on his cross, you come to discover that he is with you in your cross, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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