Palm Sunday: Red of Love, Red of Blood

Today we celebrate Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord. We read the narrative of the Passion. And the entire Holy Week is dedicated to meditating on the historical events of that holy week, the Holy Week of Jesus, almost two thousand years ago.

We know that everything does not finish with Good Friday. We know that life does not finish with death. But each Holy Week celebration teaches us something different and useful for our life. On Holy Thursday, we will meditate on Jesus’ gift of priesthood, why Jesus established ordained ministers in His Church. On Good Friday, we will see the Cross as a podium from which the dying Master teaches; and on Easter each of us, like Mary Magdalene, will find again—alive by His power—the One we pierced with our own sins.

Today, Palm Sunday, Passion Sunday, we use red coloured vestments. Why?

In order to conquer our hearts, in order to show us His love, Jesus chose the red colour of His blood. In order to declare His love for the human race, in order to let us know how much He was willing to do for us, Jesus chose red, He chose the Cross, He died for our sins.

And why are the images covered? Not because they are bad: images are good in the church. Images are like pictures of what happened two thousand years ago. Two thousand years ago, however, there were no images but only historical reality, real people. As we enter Holy Week, we want to emphasize the reality of what happened and, in a way, relive it and thus reflect better upon the mystery of our redemption in Jesus Christ. This is why we cover the images.

Let us enter this Holy Week as if we were present at Jesus’ Holy Week, as if we were one of the crowd, or one of His disciples... May the memory of these historical events rekindle in us the desire to follow Jesus more faithfully, more fervently.

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