Dear Christ the King Family,
So begins the holiest of weeks for us in our faith with our celebration of Palm Sunday! More than just “Catholic origami”, there is a deep symbolism to the palms we hold, as they are an ancient symbol of victory. Consider how despite the harsh circumstances in the desert that cause other plants to wither, palms trees flourish. Even the Psalmist says in Psalm 92, “The just will flourish like the palm tree.” And this symbol of victory took on a deeper mystery through this event of Palm Sunday and through the early centuries of the church as the palm branch became symbolic of martyrdom. That’s why you often see visual depictions of saints who were martyrs holding a palm frond. And who is a martyr? The word itself means to be a “witness”. Some saints were called to witness in that particular way to our Lord’s Passion by the shedding of their own blood, but the truth is that all of us are called to be a witness to Christ in our lives! But in order to be a witness to the transformative love and grace that is Jesus Christ, we must first be the ones who witness his saving action in how He poured out His love and grace for us first.
That is what Holy Week is about—we enter more profoundly than ever before into the Mystery of God’s love and bear witness to it in our liturgy and worship. It’s not enough for us to talk about Palm Sunday and the days that follow as some distant moment in the past and be “flies on the wall”, but we make that moment present right now, holding our own palm leaves as we join the crowd welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem and shouting ‘Hosanna.’ In fact, we play a part in every character during each day of Holy Week, and that’s why there is really no substitute to being physically present to each of our special liturgies during this week. We are in the crowd acclaiming Hosanna on Palm Sunday. We are in the upper room with Jesus and his Apostles on Holy Thursday. We are there at Golgotha at the foot of the Cross on Good Friday with the few who remained. And we wait with Our Lord in the tomb in silence as he breaks the bonds of death and the gates of hell, as we keep vigil for the dawn of that third day.
The Paschal Mystery reveals to us a boundless revelation of the salvation offered by God in the person of Jesus Christ. As we hear in our second reading, it seems to already be enough that Our Lord emptied himself and became a slave in taking on our human condition, but that kenosis, that “self-emptying”, went even further, as Our Lord offers his life on the Cross out of love for us to set us free. When we hear our Lord Cry out “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” We bear witness to that self-emptying, to the point where the Son of God felt forsaken and abandoned in drinking the cup of our humanity to the very last drop, in he who was sinless bearing the burden and punishment of our sin. May this Palm Sunday begin a week of witness for us, of witnessing anew and afresh the very heart of the Mystery of God, the Mystery of Love, revealed in Jesus Christ. I pray that for each of us, this Holy Week brings an ever-deepened encounter with Our Lord, as we watch and pray this week and conform our lives ever more closely to the Paschal Mystery.
In Christ, Our King,
Fr. David
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