The Prophetic Feast of Palm Sunday and the Mystery of the Cross

18 April 2022

‘The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing.’[1] Through today’s epistle reading, the immaculate Church announces that the time of our Lord’s salvation has arrived; that the time has come for the faithful to experience once more the incomprehensible mystery of the divine Economy.

During these holy days, we no longer make petitions to God. We only offer a prayer of gratitude, which, in its fervour, turns into a fiery prayer of repentance. Besides, what more could man ask when he sees God crucified? ‘Let all mortal flesh keep silence and stand with fear and trembling.’ Now is the time to fall down on our knees and worship with reverence the mystery of the love and Passion of Christ, which begins today with His entrance into Jerusalem. It is the time to shut the doors of our senses, so that we may concentrate our mind in our heart and approach ‘with humility and reverence’[2] these eternal events.

If the world drowns us in its many cares, then the whole of Great Lent, and even more Holy Week, is granted to us as an anchor of hope, an anchor in heaven, as it provides us with the opportunity and privilege to turn our minds from things corruptible to things incorruptible, from things earthly to things heavenly, and to immerse ourselves in the mystery of the way of Christ. Through her services, hymns and readings, the Holy Church reveals this mystery to us in an exquisite manner and strengthens us to discern the way of the Lord, each one according to his own strength.

Palm Sunday

This present day is a prophetic event, a glimmer of the glory of Christ, which will be revealed in all its fullness at the end of the ages.

Today the Lord enters into Jerusalem and the whole city is shaken. On the last day He will come with glory and the entire earth will quake, so that all those things that are shaken may be removed, as ‘things that are made’, and only the things which cannot be shaken might remain, marked with the incorruptible grace of the Almighty Jesus.

During His entrance to Jerusalem, the Jews did not apprehend the real identity of the meek and humble Messiah, who was visiting them riding on a donkey’s colt.

And we now, in order to known the visitation of the Lord, that our house not remain desolate, but learn the meekness and humility of the Saviour God, and through His grace to stand in His Presence and sing ‘Blessed is He who Cometh in the Name of the Lord’.

As the children of the Jews spread out their clothing so Christ the Messiah could pass over it and bless them, thus we also spread out the impulses of our will and our desires so that the Lord may rule over our free heart. Then, His grace will cover us, so that we become His own forever.

Comforting the Lord as He Weeps: On Palm Sunday

The Holy Gospel, my beloved brethren, says this in its account of the Lord’s Entry into Jerusalem: And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it (Luke 19:41).

People’s hearts are all the same. If someone is weeping, what do we do? We approach him, ask him what he is weeping about, and try to comfort him in some way. Sometimes one becomes so sorry for the person in distress that one feels ready to give up one’s soul, if only his grief would be made lighter. Let us now approach the Lord, too, and ask: “Lord, about what are You weeping?”