palm-sunday

SUNDAY 13 APRIL 2025: PALM SUNDAY OF THE LORD’S PASSION.

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The Last Supper, Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, Paris, France.

Click here to read today’s Sunday Mass Readings.

Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.”    Luke 22:19.

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The beginning of Passiontide, Holy Week, commemorates the triumphal entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem. Just as the prophet Zechariah had foretold, “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (9:9). The stories that had preceded Jesus, above all the raising of Lazarus from the dead just a few miles away in Bethany, seemed to put a seal on it; here, at last, was the Messiah long promised by God, come to rescue God’s people from oppression and evil. And Jesus was greeted as a king, with today’s special entrance gospel reporting the people as proclaiming, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest”. Their joy and hope could not be any greater! This was the man who would restore the kingdom of David and at last expel the hated, pagan Romans. And Jesus knew this and also knew what was to follow, and yet he allowed this delirious crowd scene to take place.

The Entry into Jerusalem, Lippo Memmi 1335-1345, Santa Maria Assunta, San Gimignano, Italy.

It is important to remember this scene, as it accounts for what happened next. After this event the people were waiting to be called to arms and led by God’s Messiah to military triumph and victory. It was the universal understanding of what the Messiah would do. All he had to do was summon them, and victory was theirs. Except, of course, he didn’t. In Zeffirelli’s rendition of Jesus of Nazareth, he has an imagined meeting of Jesus with Barabbas in the Temple a few days later, who asks him when the uprising will begin. Jesus says those who live by the sword will die by the sword, and more. The bewildered man does not see the Messiah he has imagined, but a man of forgiveness and mercy. And he rejects Jesus, as does the whole city who now begin to call for his death, so bitter is their disappointment in this man who had fooled them all. To have a fever pitch of enthusiasm crushed to a feeling of betrayal accounts for the call for his death, all in the space of a few days, especially as it was so close to Passover. Recall that Passover commemorated the release from slavery in Egypt, just as the Jews longed for release from the power of the Roman Empire over them. And the Lord knew this, yet he also knew that he had to remain true to his vocation, being Christ to the world, even if that meant proclaiming a message of love and forgiveness rather than a call to arms and warfare. It was a message that condemned him to a brutal death, driven by the bitter sense of betrayal held by the people of Jerusalem, encouraged by the chief priests who feared him. His image of the Messiah was the opposite of what everyone expected. So he had to die.

Ecce Homo (Behold the Man), Titian 1558-1560, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

So today marks the start of Passion Week, when each year we contemplate the fate of this wonderful man who had done nothing wrong and everything right, yet who was reviled, scourged and brutally nailed to a wooden cross because he did not fit the image of the Messiah that everyone expected. He was God’s Messiah, not the craven image of a man of warfare, physical strength and military victory. Jesus’ total commitment to his vocation – to show the real and true meaning of what it is to be human – resulted in disaster; until it became clear that it was all true. That to live as he did and act the way he acted results in a life of eternal happiness with God. And that is worth everything. 

The Cross, pixers.

IF YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO WOULD APPRECIATE THIS MESSAGE, PLEASE FORWARD IT TO THEM. THANK YOU. 

Reflections on Mass Readings for the Sacred Triduum will be posted on Wednesday.

Please send your reactions to: RogerJohn@aol.com 

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SUNDAY MARCH 24: PALM SUNDAY OF THE LORD’S PASSION.

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Christ Entering Jerusalem, Gustave Doré, c.1882, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown MA, USA.

Those preceding him as well as those following kept crying out: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come! Hosanna in the highest!”    Mark 11:9-10.

Click here to read today’s Sunday Mass Readings.

Click on words highlighted in red for further information.

We heard last week that “some Greeks” were seeking Jesus out, presumably to question him and seek, perhaps, words of wisdom and solace. Maybe, because we were not told anything else about them. But what was certain was that Jesus had become very well known. The powers that Jesus had displayed, especially and above all bringing his friend Lazarus back from the dead, when linked together in the popular mind at that time and place meant one thing: The Messiah! But the Messiah in that contemporary popular mind meant one thing: he would be the one who would rid the Holy Land of the pagan and hated, unclean, occupying Romans, and restore the Kingdom of David. Hence the delirious welcome Jesus received on entering Jerusalem just before Passover (which commemorated the Hebrews being released from slavery under the Egyptians to the freedom of their Promised Land). Look at the picture above and look here to see the artistic difference between delirium and reality. The people of Jerusalem were expecting the conquest of the Romans under the leadership of Jesus, their idea of the Messiah. He would lead them in crushing the despised enemy and establishing a divine peace over the land. But the peace Jesus was giving was very different. It was personal, eternal and utterly real.

Hence, in the space of less than one week, the delirious moment of total trust in Jesus, who would lead them to undoubted victory against the Romans, turned into a feeling of total betrayal of all their hope. There was no call to arms, no rousing speeches, no armed charges to undoubted victory. Nothing, as we see in the reading of the Passion today. And Passover would have been the perfect time, a new Passover, out of Roman slavery and into total freedom, for the first time in possibly five centuries. It was no wonder that by Friday they were baying for his blood – and they got it. “If you’re the Son of God, come down from that cross!” But what they were asking for was Jesus to betray himself. To act to save himself. To use his power for his own purpose. To proclaim himself supreme conqueror, instead of, in his own words, a servant. The Son of Almighty God came to serve us, we who are utterly unworthy and undeserving of such a servant. Yet that was what he said (Matthew 20:28, Mark 10:45, John 13:1-17). That did not fit in any way into the popular stereotype of the Messiah as envisioned by God’s people 2000 years ago. With his vocation completed in utter disgrace and humiliation, the mirror opposite of victory and triumph, Jesus stammered out the words to his Father in heaven “Into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46) completing his work on earth, and then there was the silence of the tomb.

The Crucifixion, The Isenheim Altarpiece, Grünewald 1516, Musée Unterlinden, Colmar, France. 

PLEASE FORWARD THIS REFLECTION TO THOSE YOU THINK WOULD APPRECIATE IT.

THANK YOU.

Reflections on next Sunday’s Mass Readings will be posted on Wednesday.

Please send your reactions to: RogerJohn@aol.com

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