Palm Sunday:

Feast day : 24 March 2024

“When the days drew near for him to be taken up, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem”. Three times he had announced his Passion and Resurrection; and now by this decision he indicated that he was going to Jerusalem to die there. How will Jerusalem welcome her Messiah? Although Jesus had always refused popular attempts to make him king, he chooses the time and prepares the details for his messianic entry into the city of “his father David”. Acclaimed as Son of David, as the one who brings salvation (Hosanna means “Save!” or “Give Salvation!”), the “King of glory” enters his City “riding on an ass”. Jesus conquers the Daughter of Zion, a figure of his Church, neither by ruse nor by violence, but by the humility that bears witness to the truth. And so the subjects of his kingdom on that day are children and God’s poor, who acclaim him as had the angels when they announced him to the shepherds. Their acclamation, “Blessed be he who comes in the name of the LORD,” is taken up by the Church in the “Sanctus” of the Eucharistic liturgy that introduces the memorial of the Lord’s Passover.

It is with the celebration of that entry on Palm Sunday that the Church’s liturgy solemnly opens Holy Week. (CCC – 557-560)

(Source: Catechism of the Catholic Church)