This Sunday we celebrate Palm Sunday, when the Church proclaims the triumphant entrance of Jesus of Nazareth into Jerusalem. Jesus rides a donkey and had fresh palm branches placed upon his entrance path yet in just a few short days, the triumphant entrance and praise will turn to horror and shouts of “crucify him, crucify him!”

So what are we celebrating on Palm Sunday, some 2,024 years later? Well, let us begin at the first gospel for this Sunday (the only Sunday when two gospels are proclaimed), and this Marken Gospel ( 11:1-10) at the Procession with blessed palms, at a separate place, asks us to contemplate Jesus’ humility and His willingness to fulfill/carry out the Father’s plan for His earthly life. We are now nearly at the end of the Lenten season and at a time when we may be considering how we did in drawing closer to God the Father during Lent. Did we stick with what we “gave up,” or did we go the extra mile in doing well during Lent? Were we humble in our prayers, in our giving of alms, in our mercy and forgiveness offered? Did we carry out God’s Will for our lives?

Mark 11 should serve as a call to surrender our will to the Will of God and then recognize as well as implement God’s plan for our life and remind us to see—with spiritual eyes—that Christ IS our Lord and Savior. We are told in Mark 11 that Christ chose to follow the plan that the Father had for Him in or der to bring about the gift of human salvation. Let us also consider our Stations of the Cross in the church, especially looking at Station 1—see God with His hands tied behind His back an obeying God— with all His power to choose the easy way out.

Alternatively, Stations 12 and 13, being nailed to the Cross-and dying on the Cross-respectively, again when He had the power to do something else. Do we have the humility to submit to what we may not want to do in order to bring about a greater good…in our families, our careers, or within the Church?

Do we have the wherewithal with spiritual eyes to see the Will of God and have the courage and wisdom, gifts of the Holy Spirit, to put God first, in how we “spend our lives?” What does this take, in order to see God’s Will in our lives? It takes understanding and knowledge of our faith. In other words, a well-formed conscience—formed in wisdom of the teachings of the Church. What does Love thy neighbor over “like” thy neighbor?

What does it mean to seek the excellence of the other? What does it mean to “empty yourself” for your child, spouse or friend? Is it about “wants” or “needs” and about seeking their excellence, which sometimes means saying “no.”

Zach Wood, our parish’s director of Faith Formation has been offering classes on Church teachings, i.e., Purgatory. In the future, Zach and I, along with other specialists in other fields, will begin a series on “What the Church really means?
”, various teachings of our Faith. With the disappearing Catholic Culture in families, this series of understandings and knowledge might just be the beginning of our needed answers to rebuild our Catholic Culture. More to follow…

Happy, blessed and a very sacred Holy Triduum and Easter to come!