Homily for Palm Sunday, Year C – 13 April 2025

This Holy Week we start today is a week filled with human and spiritual drama. The Gospel at the beginning of Mass (Luke 19:28-40) tells how the week began and the Gospel we have just heard (Luke 22:14—23:56) tells how it ended on the first Good Friday. We heard how, as Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem, a crowd accompanied him with rejoicing and praise. This crowd proclaimed Jesus to be “the King who comes in the name of the Lord.” And Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, in fulfilment of the ancient messianic prophecies.

The account of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, condemnation, suffering and death were the first pieces of the gospels to be written. These Passion narratives helped the earliest Christians to stay in touch with what they had come to understand as the ultimate expression of God’s saving love. This is what our celebration today is about. Indeed, it is what the celebrations for this week, Holy Week, and especially the Sacred Triduum, are all about.

This week, we will witness the betrayal of Jesus by his closest friends, human weakness in the disciples in not staying awake with Jesus in his agony, violence against Jesus, his arrest, torture, and execution. We will witness fear, abandonment, and desertion, lies and false witness, and denial by Peter and despair in Judas.

We will experience contradictions. A king riding on a donkey rather than a war horse, in fulfilment of the prophecy of Zechariah. A triumphant, joyful entry into Jerusalem as Jesus is welcomed as the Son of David, the Messiah, and which ends in a shameful exit from the city carrying a cross for execution. This Holy Week we are asked to live through the contradictions together with Jesus. Let us feel as he felt; let us think as he thought; let us pray as he prayed.

Seeing Ourselves in the Passion

As the Passion of Jesus according to Luke is proclaimed in our hearing today, we are invited to become active and empathetic participants.

Perhaps we see a reflection of ourselves in the disciples; the last week of Jesus’ life was obviously not their finest moment. While Jesus spoke of his betrayal, they were arguing as to whom among them was the greatest. When Jesus agonized and prayed in the garden, they fell asleep. As Jesus breathed his last on the cross, they stood off at a distance.

Consider the other characters we come across in the Passion narrative that we might identify with. Can we see ourselves in the vengeful religious leaders, the jeering crowds, the shrewd political Pilate, the denying Peter, the hopeless and despairing Judas, or the faithful women who stayed with Jesus to the end? Can we identify with Simon of Cyrene who helped Jesus carry the crossbeam or the women of Jerusalem who wept at the sight of such suffering? Or can we recognize our likeness in the thief crucified with Jesus, who asked that Jesus remember him in his kingdom?

Find a point of entry either through identifying with one of these characters or one of the events and get close to Jesus, to live through his Passion with him in some way. Let’s allow ourselves the space and time to be moved and humbled at the sight of Jesus on the cross, emptying himself and sacrificing himself out of love for us.

Perhaps we have come to the end of Lent more conscious of weaknesses and frailty, our sinfulness and lack of faithfulness. Perhaps our Lenten journey has brought us to recognise our utter dependence on the mercy of God given to us in Jesus Christ?

Welcoming the Suffering Servant

Whomever we identify with in the account of Jesus’ suffering and death, we have a place in the heart of Christ. Wherever we find ourselves and whoever we are, he identifies with us in our weakness and sinfulness. It for us, and for our sake that Jesus willingly underwent this suffering and death. It is a supreme act of love for us.

Today we acclaim him and welcome him, together with the crowd of pilgrims who accompanied him to Jerusalem. In this Eucharist, we will sing “Hosanna in the Highest,” and “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” following the tradition of the early Christians who saw the connection between the coming of Jesus in the Eucharist for our salvation and his entry into the city of Jerusalem for his paschal mystery.

We are called to know him, to feel with him, to love him. Jesus is the Suffering Servant prophesied by Isaiah in the first reading today. He is the one who offered his back to those who struck him, his cheeks to those who tore at his beard. He did not cover his face against insult and spittle. The soldiers tore holes in his hands and his feet and divided his clothing among them, and cast lots for his robe. Jesus is the one, who in the Letter of St Paul to the Philippians, who being God, did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave. In humility and for our salvation, he accepted even death on a cross. It is Jesus who cries out from the cross, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!”

Opening to the Grace of Holy Week

Entering into the experience of Jesus, his pain, sorrow and suffering, will increase our appreciation for what he has done for us and increase our love for him. Identifying with Jesus on the cross will allow us to open ourselves to receiving the grace given by these events. Jesus is the innocent martyr by whose blood all sinners are forgiven and saved. Through the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus in unselfish love, the wounds of our sins are healed.

This week, as we participate in the drama of these events, we pray for an invasion of grace. We pray to be overwhelmed and transformed by the grace that flows from these events this Holy Week. We draw near to the one who loved us even to unto death. Let’s allow ourselves to be overcome by the ultimate expression of God’s saving love for us.

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