They brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks across its back, and he sat on it. (Mark 11:7)

Today’s Feast Day is truly bittersweet – We begin Mass with Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem.  The same Jerusalem Christ cried over just a short time ago.  Jesus entered to shouts of joy…that soon will echo with shouts of Crucify Him!!!!

We wonder how the people of Jesus’ time could do that – Today they throw their cloaks and palm branches across the road and four days later they will be jeering at Him as he is beaten and scourged before continuing on that same road to Calvary.  We wonder how the people could do that yet we sin soon after receiving the Eucharist, the gift He gave us before reentering that road. 

I came face to face with this when I faced my Dark Night of the Soul 28 days ago on the Feast of Saint Joseph.  That night I realized what my sins truly did to Jesus – I was the one that shouted the joy of His resurrection and then continued to let my weakness lead me to sin again.  I read the Scripture before each Friday Morning prayer, “Your inmost being must be renewed, and you must put on the new man”, yet all I was doing was vainly trying to polish and buff the old man.  “To be in Christ means being a completely new creature.  Everything of old is gone, now everything is made anew (2Corinthians 5:17)

As we begin Holy Week, have the hope of Christ entering into Jerusalem with shouts of Hosanna in the Highest.  Yes, this will lead to His passion and death on Good Friday; but also the joy of the Resurrection next Sunday.  If you have not taken the opportunity for the grace of the sacrament of Reconciliation, please do so.  The feeling I had on Thursday as I finished my confession was of indescribable peace.  The guilt was gone…& Yes, it is very humbling and not very comfortable to tell my God and my confessor all that I had done to offend my God - but the reward is everlasting life – the reward is to be able to sit on the colt and enter into the promised land with Jesus as my defender, redeemer, and friend.

Here is the challenge in DI for today – “it is not enough to accompany Jesus in His triumph; we must follow Him in His Passion, prepared to share in it by stirring up in ourselves the exhortation from the 2^nd chapter of Phillipians: 5 Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, 6 Who,  though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. 7 Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, 8 he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. 9 Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

May the Lord bless you and keep you, may His face shine upon you, and may His peace, especially His peace be with you today and forever.