Some Secular Thoughts on the Catholic Palm Sunday Liturgy

Palm Sunday is one of the most important days of the Catholic liturgical year for reasons fundamental to the religion: it's about the condemnation and death of the Messiah. As a Catholic, I accept the theology of the whole thing. But for the last few years, I've returned to the same set of thoughts about why the liturgy is so powerful and important to me from a secular standpoint. The Catholic Church's Palm Sunday liturgy teaches us important lessons about how to live, even before we get into the great spiritual, theological, and eschatological questions about Jesus, God, and the universe itself. But if we take a "Jefferson Bible" approach to the divinity of Jesus, the lessons remain quite powerful.

The Catholic service on Palm Sunday starts with a procession and Gospel reading, which is unique in the liturgical year. In Year B, Mark's Gospel serves as the first reading. It includes the following passage, talking about what happened as Jesus entered Jersualem:

Many people spread their cloaks on the road,
and others spread leafy branches
that they had cut from the fields.
Those preceding him as well as those following kept crying out:
"Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come!
Hosanna in the highest!"

So the people hailed this guy as he entered town, waving their palms and offering encomiums (and it's why we get palms at the beginning of mass). That's the groundwork for what's about to come in about 10-15 minutes: the passion narrative.

The passion substitutes for the main gospel reading, and it's handled as a sort of "table read" for a stage play. There are four characters:

- Jesus, read by the priest.
- The narrator, usually read by a deacon or a lay reader.
- The "voice," who fills in where one specific person (like Peter or Pontius Pilate) has a line of dialogue, usually read by a deacon or a lay reader.
- The "crowd," read by the congregation.

This is unique in the Catholic liturgy; normally, the Gospel reading is proclaimed by the priest or deacon, and then a homily follows. For Palm Sunday (and Good Friday), the passion stage play substitutes.

The rough narrative of the passion is as follows:

- Jesus has dinner with his apostles/followers and tells them one of them is going to betray him.
- Judas betrays him and he's arrested.
- Jesus is accused of many things but the testimony conflicts. He is eventually condemned to death for blasphemy and mocked.
- Jesus faces the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who finds no reason to put him to death.
- Pontius Pilate offers "the crowd" a choice between the release of a revolutionary and the release of Jesus, as part of a way to celebrate Passover. The crowd chooses the revolutionary.
- Jesus is mocked as "King of the Jews" and physically abused.
- Jesus is crucified and dies.

The whole stage play takes about 15 or 20 minutes to work through. For the Passion according to Mark (Year B), the crowd has a few pieces of dialogue. Several stand out. (The narrator notes are included, and the required dialogue is in quotes.)

- They all condemned him as deserving to die. Some began to spit on him. They blindfolded him and struck him and said to him, "Prophesy!"
- Pilate again said to them in reply,"Then what do you want me to do
with the man you call the king of the Jews?" They shouted again, "Crucify him."
Pilate said to them, "Why? What evil has he done?" They only shouted the louder, "Crucify him."
- The soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is, the praetorium, and assembled the whole cohort. They clothed him in purple and, weaving a crown of thorns, placed it on him. They began to salute him with, "Hail, King of the Jews!"
- With him they crucified two revolutionaries, one on his right and one on his left.
Those passing by reviled him, shaking their heads and saying, "Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself by coming down from the cross."

It's a little incongruous with the rest of the Catholic liturgy. The guy we say is God and worthy of "unending hymns of praise," we're mocking and condemning to death here. Sarcasm and spite reign. What gives?

For me at least, the Palm Sunday liturgy forces me to grapple with my humanity.

First, we're fickle. We're holding palms, just like the crowd that welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem as a king, and then just a few minutes later, we're condemning him to death.

Second, we can be mean. The mockery Jesus faces from random people and from soldiers is just callous and cold-blooded; he's a prophet and so we say, "Oh yeah? Prophesy!" They call him a King, so we clothe him in a regal purple, give him a crown of thorns, and laugh in his face. We then nail him to a cross and tell him to come down. It's just profoundly cruel.

Third, we can get caught up in a mob. The story insists that Jesus is innocent of the charges against him, but the mob insists that he be put to death anyway, ferociously advocating for a murderer to be released over the teacher.

That we have to play the part of the mob is a reminder that any of us could have done the same thing in their position. It's why it's always been deeply unfair and silly to "blame" a certain subset of people for Jesus' death: the things that got him were fundamentally human failings. Crying out "Crucify him!" makes us feel uncomfortable, because we know that he's innocent and how the story ends. But how often are we in analogous situations today? How often do we "crucify" a blameless person by acting without compassion and by surrendering to a mobocratic spirit?

There's another part that's important, though: the passion play also tells us that we can be better. Several characters do better: the nameless woman who anoints Jesus' head with oil; Simon the Cyrenian, who helps carry his cross; and Joseph of Arimathea, who prepares Jesus' body for burial. They're the ones to emulate, not the mob.

And so the Palm Sunday liturgy--and the audience participation therein--is an annual reminder for me: any of us can get caught in the mob, and all of us can aspire to do better.