Palm Sunday & Holy Week
If you were to ask my young children what is something that makes Palm Sunday Mass different from your average Sunday, they’d probably focus in on one thing. The palms! Everyone gets palms on the way in, and you get to hold it up to be blessed during Mass. If you asked a kid a little older than them (or maybe even an adult), they’d agree and add “and then discreetly fold it into the shape of a Cross while the readings are being proclaimed and you’re supposed to be paying attention.” But if that’s all we’re focused on, we’re missing out on one of the best Liturgies of the whole year (which, by the way, kicks off a whole week of amazing Liturgies leading up to Easter). So, raise your palm to be blessed, set it down, and get ready!
During the Readings from this one Mass on Palm Sunday, we have some high highs and some low lows. Songs of praise and songs of lamentation. Prophecies being fulfilled left and right, but often in ways unexpected. There’s betrayal. Love. Politics. Murder. Forgiveness. Hope. There’s so much happening in the story of Jesus’ Passion, Death, and Resurrection, you really can’t take it all in at once. That’s why the Church gives us a whole week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday to reflect on it (and honestly, we wouldn’t be able to exhaust reflecting on it in a lifetime).
So, for our purposes here, let’s see if we can find a line or two that we can latch onto as we head into this amazing week. How about; “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.’ And likewise, the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you.’” These are lines from the Last Supper on Holy Thursday night of course, but we don’t look at the Last Supper in isolation – it’s all one “event” – Jesus’ Passion, Death, & Resurrection.
And Jesus says, “Do this in memory of me.” – in the Eucharist, all of those things are made present to us. We enter into all of it, not simply the Last Supper, every time we go to Mass all year round. These lines, which the priest speaks over the bread and wine during the consecration, (which are no longer bread and wine after these words are spoken), are really the key to understanding and entering into all of the events of Holy Week. Some Christians may emphasize the Cross much more than the Last Supper, others might emphasize the Resurrection much more than the Cross, but as Catholic Christians we know that it’s all three. Always Passion, Death, and Resurrection. Always the Mass. At the Last Supper; “This is My Body.” On the Cross; “This is My Body.” Risen from the dead; “This is My Body.”
Jesus wants us not just to read about these events, but for them to be made present to us through the power of the Sacrament that we would encounter him! So this year for Holy Week as we attend Mass for Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and Good Friday liturgies if we get a chance, and on Easter, may we have a new perspective of what we’ve been entering into all along.