Palm Sunday and Holy Week

by Fr. Chris Axline  |  04/12/2025  |  Weekly Reflection

Hello St. Mary Magdalene,

Isn’t it amazing how fickle we can be sometimes? Turning to Palm Sunday and Holy Week I can’t help but find some deep resonance with the fickle nature of the crowd gathered in Jerusalem. Today they (and each of us) sing “Hosanna to the Son of David” and celebrate Jesus with loud acclaim and admiration. Yet, five days later, these same individuals (and we too in the liturgy) will then shout “Crucify Him, Crucify Him.”

Why and how do they turn on Him so quickly? Pope Benedict XVI in 2012 gives us an insight into the crowd and our own hearts when he writes,

What is really happening in the hearts of those who acclaim Christ as King of Israel? Clearly, they had their own idea of the Messiah, an idea of how the long -awaited King promised by the prophets should act. Not by chance, a few days later, instead of acclaiming Jesus, the Jerusalem crowd will cry out to Pilate: “Crucify him!”, while the disciples, together with others who had seen him and listened to him, will be struck dumb and will disperse. The majority, in fact, was disappointed by the way Jesus chose to present himself as Messiah and King of Israel. This is the heart of today’s feast, for us too. Who is Jesus of Nazareth for us? What idea do we have of the Messiah, what idea do we have of God?

In other words, the crowd could not fathom Jesus, His Apostles gave in to the temptation of thinking the past three years were a failure and left Him. Christ does not always work the way we want Him to and that’s the point of Holy Week; to learn from Christ how God sees each of us and the world through the eyes of His Providence and to teach us that God is not afraid of our sufferings but rather that He wants to sanctify us even in our weakness. We might be ashamed of this part of ourselves, but He isn’t! This is what we call theologically redemptive suffering and was a concept so many of Jesus’ own peers could not fathom; but we can and that’s a grace we can seek this Holy Week- to allow Christ to redeem and heal us in our brokenness so that we can truly rise to new life! So as we celebrate this magnificent feast and powerful week, let us seek the Lord and truly offer ourselves to Him or, as St. Andrew of Crete (d. 740) encourages:

So it is ourselves that we must spread under Christ’s feet, not coats or lifeless branches or shoots of trees, matter which wastes away and delights the eye only for a few brief hours. But we have clothed ourselves with Christ’s grace, or with the whole Christ ... so let us spread ourselves like coats under his feet ... let us offer not palm branches but the prizes of victory to the conqueror of death.

Have a wonderful holy week and know that I am praying for you!