Palm Sunday solemnly opens Holy Week, with the memory of the Palms and the Passion, of the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and the liturgy of the word that evokes the Passion of the Lord in the Gospel of Saint Matthew.
On this day, the two liturgical traditions that have given rise to this celebration intertwine: the joyful, multitudinous, festive liturgy of the Mother Church of the Holy City, which becomes a mimesis, an imitation of what Jesus did in Jerusalem, and the austere memory – anamnesis – of the passion that marked the liturgy of Rome. Liturgy of Jerusalem and Rome, together in our celebration. With an evocation that cannot fail to be updated.
We go with our thoughts to Jerusalem, we climb the Mount of Olives to stop at the Betfage chapel, which reminds us of the gesture of Jesus, a prophetic gesture, who enters as a peaceful King, Messiah first acclaimed and later condemned, to fulfill in all the prophecies. .
For a moment the people revived the hope of already having with them, openly and without subterfuge, the one who came in the name of the Lord. At least that’s how the simplest understood it, the disciples and people who accompanied Jesus, like a King.
You can also read: Drinking partner stabs him
Saint Luke does not speak of olive trees or palm trees, but of people who were carpeting the path with their dresses, as a King is received, people who shouted: “Blessed is he who comes as King in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory on high.”
Words with a strange evocation of the same ones that announced the birth of the Lord in Bethlehem to the humblest. Jerusalem, since the 4th century, in the splendor of its liturgical life, celebrated this moment with a massive procession. And the thing pleased the pilgrims so much that the West embodied in this procession of branches one of the most beautiful celebrations of Holy Week.
With the liturgy of Rome, on the other hand, we enter into the Passion and anticipate the proclamation of the mystery, with a great contrast between the triumphant path of Christ on Palm Sunday and the Way of the Cross of the holy days.
However, the last words of Jesus on the tree are the new seed that must push the evangelizing oar of the Church in the world.
You can also read: Tragedy at Las Palomas Mine
“Father, in your hands I entrust my spirit”. This is the Gospel, this is the new news, the content of the new evangelization. From a paradox, this world that seems so autonomous, needs to be announced to it the mystery of the weakness of our God in which the culmination of his love is demonstrated. As announced by the first Christians with these long and detailed narratives of the passion of Jesus.
It was the announcement of the love of a God who descends with us into the abyss of what makes no sense, of sin and death, of the absurd cry of Jesus in his abandonment and in his extreme confidence. It was an announcement to the pagan world that was all the more realistic as with it the force of the Resurrection could be measured.
The liturgy of the palms anticipates on this Sunday, called Easter, the triumph of the resurrection; while the reading of the Passion invites us to enter consciously into the Holy Week of the glorious and loving Passion of Christ the Lord.
