Reflection for Palm Sunday

Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, Pietro Lorenzetti (1320)

 

"The ultimate goal of Jesus' 'ascent' [to Jerusalem] is his self-offering on the Cross, which supplants the old sacrifices; it is the ascent that the Letter to the Hebrews describes as going up, not to a sanctuary made by human hands, but to heaven itself, into the presence of God (9:24). This ascent into God's presence leads via the Cross--it is the ascent toward 'loving to the end' (cf. Jn 13:1), which is the real mountain of God."

--Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth--Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (Ignatius Press, 2011), p. 2