Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday

Holy Week begins today — our journey with the Lord from palms to Passion. Both moments reveal one central truth: the Divine Kingship of Jesus.

As Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowds cried out, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Mt 21:9). The word hosanna in Hebrew means “save, we pray.” The people were pleading for deliverance — not only from the burden of the Roman Empire but from every form of oppression and despair.

Yet by the end of that same week, their Hosannas had turned into “Crucify him!” The One welcomed on a donkey as King was soon carried out of the city lifeless — the innocent victim of the cruelest death the Empire could devise. Passion Sunday reminds us how quickly human hearts can shift when love demands more than praise.

At the heart of Holy Week stands the Easter Triduum, beginning with the Eucharist on Holy Thursday evening and concluding with the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night. These sacred days are the most solemn of the Church year because in them we celebrate the work of our redemption — the supreme act of love that changed the world forever.

We use the word Passion to describe the Lord’s suffering, but the term also means deep feeling or burning love. Jesus’ Passion was both: the physical agony He endured and the spiritual intensity of His love. He suffered His Passion because He was filled with a great passion — for God and for humanity. He died because He was utterly committed to revealing the Father’s love.

What we celebrate this week is not only Jesus’ dying and rising, but also our own dying to sin and rising with Him into new life. Participating attentively in the liturgies of Holy Week renews our faith, deepens our discipleship, and strengthens our bond with the Lord.

The Passion of Christ is the ultimate labor of love. The scourging, the nails, the cross — all were outward signs of an inner fire: His unwavering commitment to mercy and truth. The Cross is where two passions meet — a passion for God’s truth and a passion for humanity’s salvation. When these collided with a world closed to both, the result was suffering. Yet love triumphed.

So we ask: What is the great passion of my life? Am I willing to bear some “passion” — the sacrifice and struggle that faithful love requires?

Jesus poured out His life for us. As we hold our blessed palms today, may they become signs of our desire to pour out our lives in love for Him and for one another.