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Bishop's Homily for Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

April 13, 2025

Procession from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, April 17, 2011 in Jerusalem. (Ryan Rodrick Beiler / Shutterstock.com)

Homily of the Most Reverend Larry Silva, Bishop of Honolulu
[Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa, Honolulu]

Many years ago, I went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.  On the flight to Tel Aviv, there were many Jews who were also going there on pilgrimage, because it was the Feast of Booths, which is a harvest festival prescribed in the Hebrew Bible (or what we call the Old Testament).  Just as we Catholics often go the Rome on pilgrimage, the Jews go to Jerusalem.  While I was in Jerusalem, I was very surprised to see many Jews lined up on the Mount of Olives with palm branches in their hands.  There they were forming a procession into the Old City of Jerusalem, going to the site where the Temple had been.  I always thought this Palm Sunday procession we hear about in the Gospels was a novelty for the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, but I discovered that this was something the Jews had been doing for centuries.  Jesus simply joined in the procession in a special way as he entered Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, where he would accomplish his own Passover from death to life.

When Jesus sat at table for the Passover meal, he did what Jews had been doing for centuries.  He took bread and wine, saying prayers of blessing over them.  The Jewish Passover meal, commemorating their liberation from slavery in Egypt, was not something that Jesus invented.  It had been celebrated for centuries.  Yet Jesus did something very shocking.  As he gave the blessed bread to his disciples to eat, he said, “This is my body, which will be given for you.”  And as he took the cup of blessing, he said, “This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you.”  What was a routine ritual that had been performed for centuries, suddenly took on new meaning, as Jesus established the Eucharist, tied it forever to his own death, and gave his Body and Blood to the disciples to eat and drink.

There are many other clues of this “new covenant,” a new relationship with God and his people that was affected by Jesus and that we hear about in this Gospel of the Passion of the Lord.  The people were accustomed to the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb, but Jesus made himself the Lamb that was slain to take away our sins and preserve us from death.  God was considered so holy that his presence was distanced from the people, most of whom never saw the Ark of the Covenant, which God himself had designed as a symbol of his presence because it was hidden behind a veil in the Temple.  At the death of Jesus, however, that veil was torn in two from top to bottom, exposing God in all his glory to his beloved people.  Never before had God been so close to them as when Jesus, not clinging to his divinity, laid down his life for us.

We go through life with many routines.  Each day has its own routines of preparing for the day, work or school, and the other activities that are a normal part of the day.  Even on holidays, we have our routines, our customs and traditions.  But we celebrate this Holy Week to be reminded that Jesus wants to break through those routines and to make all things new in his death and resurrection.

We Catholics come here to Mass every Sunday, and there is the routine of music, prayers, Scripture readings, and homilies.  Yet we can sometimes miss the fact that the same Jesus who died and rose again in Jerusalem so many centuries ago, is right here with us, offering himself to us as food and drink, opening up forever the veil between God and us, so that we can gaze upon him face-to-face.  We come with the hurts we have experienced and perhaps with the grudges we carry routinely.  But Jesus is here to remind us that forgiving even our enemies is his shocking way of love.  We routinely commit sins, yet Jesus is here to pardon our sins when we admit them like the criminal on the cross.  We routinely cling to safety, as Peter did three times, until Jesus looks at us with his merciful love, and we are moved to weep in repentance because we have offended the One who loves us so much.  And then we have the courage to go out and proclaim Jesus and his love to others, even if they reject and persecute us.

So often, we live life with our normal daily routines, but this week in a special way, Jesus reminds us that life in him is anything but routine.  It is often filled with sufferings, betrayals, and disappointments, but if we keep our eyes fixed on the Crucified One and exalt him with our praises, we can expect the most amazing surprises of healing, love, and liberation in our lives.