Palm Sunday
Sunday, March 29, 2026
St. James Cathedral (Noon Mass)
 
My friends, welcome to Holy Week! Over these next days we will not simply remember past events but will be plunged into the saving death and resurrection of Christ, right now in our lives. Let us allow the liturgies of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday to wash over us, and let us dare to be transformed by them.
 
Let us seek the kind of transformation Saint Paul writes about as he describes the mission of Jesus in our second reading today. Paul writes that though he, like the first human, Adam, was made in the form - in the image of God - unlike Adam, he did not deem this equality with God something to be grasped at. And in emptying himself, in refusing to grasp at power – in refusing to answer violence with more violence – God greatly exalted him, and he became the means of salvation for you and me and the whole world.
 
The humble, non-violent Son of God enters Jerusalem riding a donkey and subjects himself to the power of Caesar’s Roman government. In so doing he shows himself to be more powerful than any army on earth. It is Jesus, and his disarming way of self-emptying love, that challenges us and invites us to deeper conversion this week. It is this self-emptying love that is the way of our God, and is the life into which our Elect will be baptized on Saturday night. It is into this way of life that we, the baptized, will be invited to recommit ourselves.
 
And recommit ourselves we must in order to resist the way of the world today. Does this disarming, self-emptying love make us vulnerable? It does. But it is also the only way to true peace in our hearts and in our world. The way to fight threats, both personal and communal, is not to answer violence, whether in words or deeds, with more violence. We have to fight the violence that is so pervasive in our lives and in our world. But the way we fight is not with the weapons of the world but with the weapons of Jesus.
 
What are those weapons? Not the weapons of the naked power of Caesar, but the weapons of a naked and dead Jesus – the weapons of self-emptying love. And that power of Jesus always wins. If we have any doubt about that, we just need to look at the symbol that rests here, next to our altar.
 
It is not a symbol of the Roman Empire. It is not a symbol of military might. We stand before this crucifix, which had symbolized Caesar’s naked might, and now speaks of the naked love of God. And God has made the one who hangs on this cross, the one who emptied himself, refusing to grasp at power – this one is Christ and Lord to the glory of God the Father. 
 
In the coming week we are invited to enter into this most profound story as it unfolds. It is a story that tells of our salvation. It is a story that upends the worldly narrative that “might makes right.” It is a story not just about something that happened long ago and far away. In our re-telling of the story, in our remembering what God has done for us in Jesus, the Elect and all of us are plunged once again, right now, into it’s saving power. 
 
Let us allow the profound truth of this story - the greatest story ever - to transform us, and through us, to transform our violent and war-weary world. May the Eucharist we share and the Eucharist that our Elect long for, nourish us for this journey with Jesus - this journey into disarming, self-emptying love.
 
Welcome to Holy Week!

Father Gary F. Lazzeroni