Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion is also known as “Passion Sunday.” It takes place on the Sunday before Easter, and is the first day of Holy Week. The Palm Sunday Mass begins with a Gospel reading of Jesus coming to Jerusalem where he will be arrested, tried, and crucified. This Mass challenges us to recognize how we welcome Christ one moment, and reject him the next, through sin. We begin by welcoming him with palms as we proceed into the church. During the passion reading, the congregation reads the part, “Crucify him!”

What is Palm Sunday?

Palm Sunday commemorates Christ’s journey into Jerusalem to complete his work as the Messiah: to suffer, to die, and to rise again. As he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, the crowd scattered cloaks and leafy branches on the ground before him.

The Palm Sunday liturgy begins with the blessing of the palms when the priest sprinkles them and the congregation with holy water. This is followed by a reading of the gospel story of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem. The priest then leads the congregation, who are carrying their palms, into the church. Following the procession is the Liturgy of the Word for which it is called “Passion Sunday.”

When the great crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took palm branches and went out to meet him, and cried out: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, (even) the king of Israel.”

– John 12:12-13

Passion Sunday

The whole congregation takes part in reading the passion. “This is not a ‘passion play’ or a mere retelling of the story of Jesus’ death. This is real life,” says Thomas Richstatter, O.F.M. in the Catholic Update article, “Lent: A 40-Day Retreat: Rediscovering Your Baptismal Call.” “The liturgy invites us to see the Gospel story as our story, so that we can be present to these events and see why we need conversion.

The passion reading is taken from the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, or Luke, according to the current lectionary cycle (A, B, or C). This is the first of two passion readings during Holy Week. The second reading of the passion appropriately takes place on Good Friday and is always from the Gospel of John.

• Year A (2011, 2014, 2017): Matthew 26:14—27:66
• Year B (2012, 2015, 2018): Mark 14:1—15:47
• Year C (2013, 2016, 2019): Luke 22:14—23:56
• Good Friday: John 18:1—19:42

The Crucifixion of Jesus Frees Us from Original Sin

Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is of central significance for Christianity; however, the importance of his crucifixion is sometimes difficult to understand. “We believe that the great paradox – a crucified God – reveals the ultimate truth about who Christ is and how great is God’s love,” say Karen Sue Smith and Donna L. Ciangio, O.P. in To Be Like Jesus: Daily, Lectionary-Based Lenten Reflections [Year A].

Christ’s crucifixion is closely linked to the fall of Adam and Eve. Original sin resulted from Adam and Eve’s desire to be god-like, but Christ frees us from that sin through his paschal mystery. “When Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were trying to seize divinity for themselves,” explains Fr. Robert Barron in, Stay with Us, Lord: Daily Scriptural Reflections for Lent. “Christ comes as the new Adam, and here’s the high paradox of Christianity: God himself does not grasp at divinity, but lets go of it. And in that action of letting go, the curse of Adam is undone.”

In The Catholic Source Book, Rev. Peter Klein tells of a tradition that illustrates a connection between the crucifixion and Adam’s death. “The place of the Lord’s crucifixion (which we call Calvary) was called Golgotha in Aramaic, meaning ‘place of the skull.’ It was called that in tradition because of the ancient legend that Christ was crucified on the very spot in which Adam was buried, so that the blood of Jesus would have poured down its redemptive stream upon humankind’s first guilty head.”

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion commences Holy Week. This is the perfect time to read and reflect on the passion. Try reading it from the viewpoint of the people within the story. Place yourself there and acknowledge your feelings and thoughts. What parts of the passion strike you? Are there words and phrases that pique your interest? Spend some time in prayer reflecting on these words and what they mean to you. What is God trying to say to you?

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