Today all the Christians who follow the Gregorian Calendar celebrate the Palm Sunday, which is Jesus' entrance to Jerusalem and the start of the Holy Week.
Palm Sunday is the first day of Holy Week and is one of only two days on the church calendar when we proclaim and hear the story of the passion and death of Jesus.
You can find the scriptures for Palm Sunday and background material on them here. Got kids? Material to help children prepare to hear the Word on Palm Sunday can be found here.
The entrance rite for Palm Sunday offers several options and so it's possible that the Mass you attend may begin with a proclamation of the gospel of Christ's entry into Jerusalem. This will take place at Masses including a special Palm Sunday procession.
Yes, the proclamation of the gospel this weekend is much longer than usual and you might hear some grumbling about that. But as I told the high school students who are participating in the proclamation of the Passion at two liturgies this weekend (9:30 and 11:30), this is a story that Christians love because it tells the depths of Jesus' love for each of us and for all of us... Without the story of Christ's suffering and death there is no story of Easter joy and peace...
Spend some time with all of the readings, especially the gospel. You might find it helpful as your read it to imagine yourself as one or several of the characters and ponder: what if I had been one of the apostles? what if I had been one of the pharisees? what if I had been Pilate? or Judas? or Peter? or one of the servant girls? or Pilate's wife? or someone in the crowd? what if I had been the centurion at the foot of the Cross? what if I had been Jesus? At one time or another in our lives, we are all of these... who am I, who are you this Holy Week?
Reprinted from Concord Pastor's blog under Fair Use.
What we are about to encounter in Holy Week is the finale of God taking the complete humanity of the man Jesus of Nazareth into His divine Person Who is Protagonist of every human action: "He worked with human hands, He thought with a human mind, acted by human choice and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, He has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin" (Gaudium et spes #22).
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