Entering Holy Week with the Donkey-King Matthew 21:1-11
Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF Claretian Missionaries
Palm Sunday is a threshold. We stand at the gate of Jerusalem with the crowd, palms in hand, hosannas on our lips. But if we enter this week too quickly—if we rush from the triumphal entry to the Last Supper to the cross without lingering here—we risk missing what this day is meant to do in us.
For the faithful, Palm Sunday is not a celebration of a victory already won. It is an invitation to follow a King who refuses to be the king we want.
I think about the donkey. How easily we wave our branches and forget the animal. A warhorse would have made sense. A chariot with iron wheels would have satisfied the crowd’s hunger for spectacle. But Jesus chooses the beast of peasants, the animal that carries burdens, the creature of peace. He is making a statement not only to Jerusalem but to every generation of disciples: My kingship is not of this world. I do not conquer by the sword. I conquer by letting myself be broken.
And yet the crowd does not see this. They see what they want to see. They spread their cloaks—an act of royal homage—and they shout “Son of David,” a title thick with military and political hope. They have followed him from Galilee, witnessed healings, eaten multiplied bread. Now they believe the moment has come for him to seize power. They are sincere in their hosannas, but their sincerity is blind. They are cheering for a revolution that Jesus has no intention of leading.
I recognize myself in that crowd. How often I come to God with my own agenda dressed up as faith. I want a Messiah who will fix my problems on my timeline, who will defeat the people who trouble me, who will establish my comfort and vindicate my cause. I want a stallion. I want power dressed in religious language. And Jesus, patient and unyielding, offers me a donkey.
Then the city shakes.
Matthew tells us that when Jesus entered Jerusalem, “the whole city was shaken.” Not the crowds outside the gates—they are already cheering. The city itself, the center of religious and political power, trembles. The chief priests, the scribes, the elders, the Sadducees—they look at this procession and feel the ground move beneath their feet. They have spent years constructing a fragile peace with Rome, negotiating a modus vivendi with Herod, managing the temple as a source of control and revenue. A Galilean prophet riding into the city with messianic shouts threatens to undo it all.
Their question—“Who is this?”—is not innocent wonder. It is fear. They know who he is. They have heard the reports. Their question is a defensive reflex: What do we do with this man who disrupts our careful arrangements?
I recognize myself in the city, too. There is a Jerusalem within me—a part of my life where I have arranged things just so, balancing my compromises, my unspoken bargains, my quiet accommodations with powers I dare not confront. I have learned to live with the Romans in my own soul: the pressures to conform, the fear of losing status, the need to keep things stable. When Jesus approaches that part of me, riding on a donkey, I feel the tremor. His gentleness is threatening because it asks me to surrender the control I have so carefully maintained.
This is what Palm Sunday does. It exposes the gap between what I say I want from God and what I am actually willing to receive. It shows me that I often want a Messiah who fits into my world, not one who turns it upside down. And this is precisely why Palm Sunday is essential preparation for Holy Week.
If I enter Holy Week still thinking that Jesus is the conquering hero who will make all my troubles go away, then Good Friday will be nothing but confusion and disappointment. I will be like the disciples who scattered in the garden, unable to understand why the King did not fight. But if I let Palm Sunday teach me—if I sit with the donkey until I understand that Jesus reigns through self-emptying love—then I am ready to walk the rest of the week.
The donkey leads to the cross. The meekness that unsettles Jerusalem is the same meekness that will not call down angels from the cross. The King who refuses to ride a stallion is the King who refuses to save himself. Palm Sunday trains my eyes to see glory in humility, victory in surrender, kingship in suffering.
As I begin Holy Week, I am invited to let my hosannas be purified. I am invited to stop asking Jesus to be the king of my fantasies and to accept him as the King he is: the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. I am invited to let my Jerusalem—my carefully managed life—be shaken, so that what is built on fear can crumble and make room for what is built on love.
The branches I carry today will wither by Friday. But if I follow this King on his donkey through the gates, if I stay with him through the shaking and the silence and the cross, I will find myself on the other side of the tomb. And there, the hosanna will mean something it could never mean on this day.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Not as I imagined him, but as he is.
The Grain That Dies Is Due to Bring Forth Life. Gospel: Matthew 26:14–27:66
Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF Claretian Missionaries
The dearest learning of the Lenten seasons is: God has not miraculously saved Christ from a difficult situation. He has not obstructed the injustice and the death of his Son. In him God has made it known that he does not overcome evil by hindering it with miraculous interventions but by taking away its power to harm, even making it a time of growth for the man. It is difficult to assimilate this logic of God. It is difficult to accept that “unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (Jn 12:24).
Matthew particularly insists on the repudiation of violence and the use of weapons. Only he reports the words of Jesus to Peter, who tried to defend him with a sword: “Put your sword back into its place, for all who take hold of the sword will die by the sword” (Mt 26:52). Tertullian, the famous apologist of the I-II century, commented: “Disarming Peter, Jesus took away the weapons from the hands of every soldier.” A few decades later, the biblical scholar Origen echoed, “We Christians no longer grip the sword; we don’t anymore learn the art of war because through Jesus we have become children of peace.”
One of the issues close to Matthew’s heart is the universalism of salvation. Israel cannot consider herself as the only and jealous depositary of the promises. She played the role that the Lord entrusted to her: to prepare the coming of God’s kingdom. Now she is expected, first among the guests, in the banquet hall (Mt 22:1-6). Unfortunately, Israel rejected the invitation. In the early Christian community, it is experienced as a painful laceration, like a sword that pierces the soul (Lk 2:35), as “a thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor 12:7). The maximum expression of this refusal is the cry: “His blood be on us and on our children” (Mt 27:25).
The nonsensical interpretation of this phrase has had tragic consequences: hatred, absurd accusations, violence, and Christians supporting the persecution of the Jews. The meaning attributed to it by Matthew was totally different. The Jews had chosen violence and rejected the reign of peace announced by Jesus. The evangelist wants to warn of the danger of repeating the same mistake.
Another incident reported only by Matthew is the death of Judas. This disciple is the symbol of all those who, for a time, follow Jesus. Then they are aware that Jesus does not realize their dreams of glory and their thirst for power. They abandon him and even turn against him.
If we free ourselves from the stereotypes for a moment, we can experience respect and compassion for the plight of this man. It seems that, in the group of the apostles, he had no friends. When he saw the only one who loved him go to his death, he must have felt terribly alone to carry the weight of his mistake. He’s gone, unfortunately, to vent his remorse, his inner torment to the wrong people, the temple priests who used him. If he had turned to Christ, his life would end in another way.
Finally, only Matthew speaks of the guards placed in custody of the tomb (Mt 27:62-66): they are a sign of the triumph of evil. Their presence testifies that the righteous is defeated, the deliverer silenced, locked forever in a tomb. It is the experience that we have: evil always gives the impression of being assured of a final triumph, such as to consider as dreams the poor, the weak and the defenseless’ hope for justice. God, however, ensures his unexpected intervention. His angel will roll every stone that prevents the return to life and will sit on it (Mt 28:2). The soldiers, placed to defend injustice and iniquity, will flee in terror from his light (Mt 28:4).
March 29, 2026 Palm Sunday Gospel: Matthew 21:1-11, 26:14-27:66
Today, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week. This year on Palm Sunday, there are two Gospel readings, both taken from the holy Gospel of Matthew. They recount the Lord Jesus Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem and His Passion narrative as recorded by Saint Matthew. I would like to take this opportunity to offer some reflections for all of you.
We often act like the crowds who welcomed Jesus into the city of Jerusalem, lining up to greet a distinguished guest who comes among us to be with us, and at times, we do our best to prepare in various ways to welcome that honoured guest. Just as Jesus’ disciples did for Him on that day (cf. Mt 21:1-7). When all preparations were complete, Jesus entered Jerusalem publicly and was welcomed by the crowds there.
We might find it strange: weren’t those crowds in Jerusalem welcoming Him when He entered? Didn’t they cry out, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Hosanna in the highest!” (Mt 21:9)? Then, what were they doing when Jesus was being crucified? They sought all kinds of evidence against Jesus, slandering Him in every way possible to put Him to death (cf. Mt 26:57-67; 27:11-26). When Jesus was nailed to the Cross, they even mocked Him, saying: “He saved others; He cannot save Himself. He is King of Israel; let Him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He wants Him, for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.'” (cf. Mt 27:39-49). For they refused to believe that Jesus was the One sent by the Father into the world to save it through Him (cf. Jn 3:16-17).
Today, the Church invites each of us to meditate on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ and all that He did out of love for us. This is precisely an invitation for us to imitate Our Lord Jesus Christ: to courageously surrender ourselves, to remain steadfast in adversity, to always trust in God’s mercy, to always follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to have our hearts set on loving God above all things, and to imitate Jesus by loving those who hurt us and praying for God’s mercy upon them.
Almighty ever-living God, who as an example of humility for the human race to follow caused our Savior to take flesh and submit to the Cross, graciously grant that we may heed his lesson of patient suffering and so merit a share in his Resurrection. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever
全属于祢 
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