Palm Sunday

​Palm Sunday Reflection
Carolina Perez
Assistant Executive Director for Mission and Ministry

Blessed Palm Sunday. Today’s Gospel is one of the longest that will be proclaimed in the liturgical year and one of the three days of the year where we use the color red in the liturgy, this is because of the passion of Jesus. As we reflect on the Gospel of Mark that is proclaimed today, we can easily connect with at least one portion of it, and what resonates with me is suffering. I was taught that the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, or the Paschal Triduum, is a paradigm of human experience. As time goes by, this makes more sense to me because every single one of us has had a journey of pain, a moment where we feel like we have “hit rock bottom,” and a moment of hope.
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As I reflected on the passion and death of Jesus, I couldn’t help but feel enraged with the religious leaders, the Sanhedrin. Leadership in society consistently makes decisions that impact the lives of their community members, most especially the marginalized. I think about how much suffering in this world could have been prevented if we had leadership that more accurately reflects the community they serve. I think about our own religious institution, the Roman Catholic Church, and the lack of female clergy. It pains me to reflect on this Gospel during Women’s History Month because I feel celebrated but not represented. I share only the smallest bit of Jesus’s suffering because I continue to grapple with the struggle of not being able to discern a way of life, a sacrament that is not accessible to me. Through the Synod process and the organization “Discerning Deacons,” I have found that I am not alone. There are others who have also opened up their hearts and shared their longing for a Church that encompasses God’s hesed.

At the end of today’s Gospel we see that Jesus was only recognized after the passion, and through that find a glimpse of hope, one of our beautiful Christian Virtues. I, along with my brothers and sisters, hold and lift up the suffering of the world in intercessory prayer because of hope in the Son of God, the Risen Christ. However, hope is only possible after we have processed suffering in our lives. A few questions left to ponder on are, where have you experienced the Paschal Triduum in your life and how could you offer it up to Jesus during Holy Week?