My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. From today we enter Holy Week. The first part of today's Mass is the celebration of Palm Sunday, where we celebrate the event of Jesus being welcomed as a King in Jerusalem.

Most of us have seen this scene in a movie: There’s a person who is strapped on an electric chair about to die. The police are just waiting for 3pm on the clock before pulling down the lever to deliver thousand of volts of electricity so that the prisoner who is condemned to die will be killed. And with just a few seconds before 3pm, the phone rings, the President is on the line and orders the police to give the prisoner a reprieve.

As a young altar server, I loved Palm Sunday. There would be a large group of us servers, all dressed in a red cassock and surplice, and we were given a palm to wave. 

This is one of the very few occasions that we have two gospels in one Mass. And I have often said how contrasting these two are.

Palm Sunday commemorates the triumphant entry of Christ into Jerusalem, just days before He was to be crucified.

This is the only Sunday in Lent that has two names: Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday.  This is because the liturgy celebrates two aspects of the mystery of our redemption that we are to keep in mind during Holy Week.

Happy Easter! It’s wonderful that this edition of In the Word is published in Easter Week, just days after the celebration of the resurrection of the Lord. What a joyful time this is.

We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song! This is what we profess, but what does it mean for us in our life and our mission?