Throughout the Lenten season, we’ve been posting reflections for holy days and Sundays from this year’s Lenten reflection booklet, “Return to me with all your heart,” written by Ralph McCloud, and from previous Lenten reflection booklets, like the one below, written by Linda Ballard, OSC in 2007 for that year’s Lenten booklet, “Wrestling with presence.” Click here to see all reflections as they are posted as well as links to other Lenten resources on our Lent 2025 webpage.
reflection for PALM SUNDAY, APRIL 13, 2025
by Linda Ballard, OSC
originally published in 2007
Luke 19:28-40 | Isaiah 50:4-7 | Philippians 2:6-11 | Luke 22:14-23:56
Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not deem equality with God something to be grasped. Rather he emptied himself … Philippians 2:6-7a
If people were silent, stones would cry out because God has arrived in God’s own city. If co-workers exchanged faithfulness for fortune or if best friends turned away in fear, it would make no difference. This was not about what humans could do. This was about what God would do.
In Eden, humans pretended to be God before learning to be human. As Creation cried, humans who just barely understood the present gave away their future and died, haunted by their past. In their ignorance, humans lived the slavery that bound them to their own greed, prejudice, violence. And now, in the fullness of time, God, without asking our permission, without accepting our struggling vision of human sensibilities, without worrying if we understood, began the drama that would restore humans to freedom and would bring the Beloved home.
For the record, let me repeat, God did not ask our permission or agreement with God’s strategy. We make lists — you know, the places where we want to let God in on God’s terms and then the places where we only want to let God in on our terms.
Palm Sunday begins the reminder that there are no valid terms that are not God’s first. Palm Sunday is the reminder that parades that lead in the direction that is God rarely begin with bravado or even the traditional use of human power. Palm Sunday reminds us that it is fading and fleeting and all-too-human to master the tools of destruction. Palm Sunday reminds us that the real goal — the only goal — of PRESENCE is to master the tools that bring life.
And so we come. We do not understand so much as stand in awe. We bless the palms — the symbol of our lives in our hands. We raise them up so that God might see; we pray that we may also have the courage to lay them down — our lives now strewn before the One Life, our lives called to make the Way of Life. And we come to break the bread and to bless the cup — to hold Life — to share in the Life that was offered for us — to become the Life that we share. It is a mighty work. It would be okay to tremble. Behold the Passion of God.
>> Click here to see more resources for prayer, study and action this Lenten season.
“In Eden, people pretended to be God before they learned to be human…”
That is truly a wonderful (I.e., filled with wonder) inspiration and insight that I will thankfully carry in my heart for the rest of my life.
We are still doing that even to this day… Sometimes we want the to be “right” when are the most wrong…demanding our will instead of the will of God, our Father.
Thank you for your reflection.
Yours in Christ,
Wm B Harrell