Palm Sunday
2026-03-29
From the writing of 1
HENRI DANIEL-ROPS
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Jesus stopped at a village called, Bethphage, which means “the house of figs”, and it was market day. “Go into the village,” said Jesus, “and untie a donkey and a colt that you will find there, and bring them to me. If anyone raises an objection, say that the Lord has need of them, and you will be allowed to take the animals”. The command seems rather strange to a modern reader, but it would have seemed much less so to the Jews round Jesus. Even if the mode of borrowing the donkey is unusual, one could sense that it had a prophetic significance. After all, Zacharias had said” “See where thy king comes to greet thee, a trusty deliverer; see how lowly he rides, mounted on a donkey, the foal of a donkey”. A messianic entry was being arranged.
Such was certainly the scene that actually took place. “The moment”, says Romano Guardini, “belongs to the power of the Spirit.” Jesus arrived, in the sunshine of the Palestinian spring, in sight of the city. His friends and followers acclaimed him, and there was soon a whole crowd surging round him…
“Who is it?” asked those loitering by the roadside. “Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee”, was the answer, and Hosannas rang out, people cut branches off the palm trees and waved them enthusiastically above their heads, and cloaks were strewn on the ground to make a ceremonial carpet for the Messiah’s mount. A curious triumph, which was to remain limited and modest, but a significant one; now that the hour of decision was at hand, Jesus no longer needed to keep his messianic character half-concealed; indeed, it was important that it should be recognized.
However, amid this manifestation of joy, Jesus had a deep feeling of anxiety and anguish. When he arrived on the crest of the mount of Olives, he stopped; the city lay before him behind huge walls bristling with towers, looking invincible and eternal. But the power of the Holy Spirit gave Christ a quite different picture, that of a Jerusalem besieged, crushed and destroyed. Why? Because it had been blind to the light…
When he arrived at the Temple, the goal of his entry as a pilgrim, Jesus caused a spectacular scene. Noticing in the colonnades the traders who were changing money or selling counters entitling their holders to the ritual lamb or doves for sacrifice, he rushed to their tables and overturned them. “Was the house of prayer to become a den of thieves?” He was really blazing with the zeal of God. It was an astonishing mysterious day. It looks as if Jesus wanted to confront all humans with the truth, with their responsibilities, once and for all.
When the day was over, and the western sky was red behind the three Herodian towers which crowned the wall on that side of the city, he had this further lesson for the little band of faithful followers who had stayed round him and was probably gazing at the setting sun: “I have come into this world as a light, so that all those who believe in me may continue no longer in darkness.” As they returned with him to Bethany, to spend the night there, the disciples must have had much to think about.

Monday of Holy Week
2026-03-30
From a sermon by 2
ST AELRED OF RIEVAULX
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Our Lord Jesus Christ worked our salvation not in one way only, but undoubtedly in many ways. Since it was in mercy that he had planned our redemption, he wrought this redemption in such a way that he might serve as an example for us… In this season you are recalling this redemption of ours. Be careful, then, to reflect not only on the fact of this redemption but also on two other points: the manner in which this redemption was wrought, and the place in which it was wrought. The manner of redemption is the suffering of the Cross; the place, outside the city.
Let us then learn from the Cross of Jesus our proper way of living. Should I say ‘living’ or, instead, ‘dying’? Rather, both living and dying. Dying to the world, living for God. Dying to vices and living by the virtues. Dying to the flesh, but living in the spirit. Thus in the Cross of Christ there is death and in the Cross of Christ there is life. The death of death is there, and the life of life. The death of sins is there and the life of the virtues. The death of the flesh is there, and the life of the spirit. But why did God choose this manner of death? He chose it as both a mystery and an example. In addition, he chose it because our sickness was such as to make such a remedy appropriate.
It was fitting that we who had fallen because of a tree might rise up because of a tree. Fitting that the one who had conquered by means of a tree might also be conquered by means of a tree… And because we had fallen from the security of that most blessed place on earth into this great, expansive sea, it was fitting that wood should be made ready to carry us across it. For no one crosses the sea except on wood, or this world except on the Cross…
Death on a Cross is endured not on the earth but above the earth; and the victim’s limbs are not cut off but stretched. They are stretched horizontally and perpendicularly, so that the crucified man is stretched out in the four directions and seems to embrace the four quarters of the world, taking possession of both heaven and earth. For when a Cross is set upright, the head is directed to heaven and the feet to earth, and the outstretched arms to what is located between heaven and earth. Moreover, if you lay a crucified man on the ground, one part of him will occupy the east, another the west, another the south, and another the north.
Do you see, now, the mystery in the kind of death Christ chose? The Apostle sets forth this point with clarity, when he says: He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to death on the Cross. And, revealing the mystery, he says: Therefore God exalted him and gave him the name that is above all names, so that at the name of Jesus every knee might bend of those who are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. Since, then, he was to take possession of heaven and earth through the Cross, on the Cross he embraced heaven and earth.
2
St Aelred, In Hebd. Sancta, sermon 36.1-2.4 (CCM 2A:294-295); Word in Season II, 2nd ed.

Tuesday of Holy Week
2026-03-31
From “On the Virtue of Patience” by 3
ST CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE
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Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, said that he had come down to earth to do his Father’s will. Among the virtues that revealed his divine majesty was the endurance that mirrored his Father’s patience. Every act of his, from the moment of his first appearing, bore the stamp of the patience with which it was carried out. He was no sinner, but the Son of God; yet when he descended to earth from the heights of heaven, he did not disdain to assume human nature and bear the sins of men.
Laying aside his immortality for a while, he suffered himself to be made mortal, in order that the innocent could die to save the guilty. He, the Lord, was baptized by a servant, and though he had come to grant forgiveness of sins he did not think it beneath him to wash in the life-giving waters. He fasted for forty days, yet it is through him that others are filled with good things. If he hungered and thirsted, it was to enable those who were faint for want of the word and grace of God to be filled with bread from heaven. He engaged in combat with the devil who tempted him, but was content to defeat his enemy by words alone.
He did not govern his disciples as a master rules his slaves. He was kind and gentle, loving them as brothers, even washing the feet of the apostles, showing by his example how a servant should bear himself toward his equals when his master dealt in such a way with his servants. No wonder he could show such goodness to the disciples who obeyed him, if he was able to bear so long and so patiently with Judas, eating and drinking with his enemy, recognizing the foe in his own household yet neither exposing him publicly nor refusing his treacherous kiss.
At the time of his Passion and Cross, even before it had gone as far as the inhuman crucifixion and the shedding of his blood, how patiently he bore reviling and reproach, insult and mockery! A little while before, he had cured the eyes of a blind man with his spittle, yet now he allowed his tormentors to spit in his face. His servants today scourge the devil and his angels in the name of Christ, but at the time of his Passion Christ himself submitted to being scourged. He crowns the martyrs with never-fading flowers, though he himself was crowned with thorns. Others he clothes in the garment of immortality, yet he himself was stripped of his earthly garments. He had fed them with bread from heaven, yet he himself was fed with gall; and he who had poured out the saving cup was offered vinegar to drink.
He the innocent, he the just, he rather who is the embodiment of innocence and justice, is counted among evil-doers. Truth is confuted by false evidence. The future judge is subjected to judgment; the Word of God is led to the Cross in silence. At the Lord’s crucifixion the stars are thrown into confusion, the elements are disturbed, earth trembles, and night swallows up day. But he himself is silent, unmoved, hiding every sign of his godhead throughout the whole duration of his Passion. Enduring all things, he perseveres to the end, so that in him patience may be brought to its full measure of perfection.
3 St Cyprian, On the Virtue of Patience 6-7 (CSEL 3:401-402); Word in Season II, 1st ed.

Wednesday of Holy Week
2026-04-01
From a sermon by 4
ST LEO THE GREAT
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When God, whose absolute being is immune from suffering, assumed our fragile humanity in Christ, he strengthened it beyond measure. Henceforth it was no longer to remain under death’s dominion; through a nature immortal in itself, mortal man would be raised to life.
We must strive, dearly beloved, with great effort of soul and body to join ourselves inseparably to this mystery. While failure to observe the Paschal Solemnity would be a very grave offense, it would be still more dangerous to be united with congregations at Church but have no sharing in our Lord’s Passion. The apostle’s saying is true: If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him.No one can truly worship the suffering, dead and risen Christ unless he himself suffers, dies, and rises again with him.
For all the Church’s children this sharing in Christ’s death and resurrection begins at the mystery of regeneration, when sin is destroyed and we are born to new life. There the Lord’s three-day sojourn in the grave is represented by a three-fold immersion. The stone is, as it were, rolled away from the tomb, and those who enter the font in their old, sin-stained condition are brought forth new by the baptismal waters. What has been effected in mystery, however, must still be carried out in their daily lives. As long as they are in this mortal body, those who are born of the Spirit must take up their cross.
Christ has lifted us up with himself on the Cross: there let the Christian take his stand. He knows it is the place where his human nature was redeemed, and all his steps should be directed toward it – for the Lord’s Passion is prolonged until the end of the world. Just as it is he whom we honour and love in the saints, he whom we feed and clothe in the poor, so too it is he who suffers in all who endure adversity for the sake of what is right, unless, indeed, we are to imagine that, with the spread of the faith, all persecution has come to an end together with every conflict which ever raged against the blessed martyrs – as if the bearing of the Cross were reserved only for those who have to suffer atrocious torments for the love of Christ.
Wise souls who have learned to fear and love the one and only Lord and to hope in him alone, mortify their passions and crucify their bodily senses. They prefer the will of God to their own lives, and insofar as they renounce love of self for love of God, they love themselves all the more truly. In such members of Christ’s body, beloved brethren, the Holy Passover is celebrated properly and they shall lack none of those victories which our Saviour’s Passion has won.
4
St Leo the Great, Sermon 70.3-5 – Good Friday 443 (PL 54,:382-384); Word in Season II, 2nd ed.

Thursday of Holy Week
2026-04-02
From the writing of 5
ST EPHREM OF SYRIA
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The evening before our Lord gave himself up to death he shared his own body with his Apostles and offered them his blood, with the command that they were to do what he had done in order to keep the memory of his Passion alive. Then a strange thing happened. Earlier Jesus had charged his disciples not to fear death. Do not be afraid of those who have power to kill your body, he had said. But now he himself showed fear, and begged to be spared the cup of suffering. Father, he prayed if it be possible, let this cup pass me by. How are we to explain this?
The answer is that our Lord’s petition was wrung from the human weakness he had made his own. There was no pretense about his incarnation; it was absolutely real. And since the donning of our poor humanity had made him puny and defenseless, it was only natural that he should experience fear and alarm. Eating to alleviate hunger, showing weariness after exertion, and revealing human weakness by the need for sleep were all the effects of his taking our flesh and clothing himself with our infirmity. Consequently when the moment of death drew near, he necessarily experienced the ultimate frailty of our human condition; he was gripped by a dreadful horror of dying.
It was then that Jesus said to his disciples: Stay awake and pray that you may be spared the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And in answer to our question he might well say: ‘When you are afraid, it is not your spirit that trembles but your human weakness. Remember then that I myself tasted the fear of death in my desire to convince you that I truly shared your flesh and blood.’
A further answer to our question is that Jesus wished to teach his disciples how to commit themselves to God both in life and in death. His own divine knowledge made him supremely wise, yet he prayed for what his Father judged to be expedient. How much more ought we ignorant men to surrender our wills to God’s omniscience!
We may also tell ourselves that we too were in our Lord’s mind as he prayed. In time of temptation our minds become confused and our imagination runs riot. By persevering in prayer Jesus was showing us how much we ourselves need to pray if we are to escape the wiles and snares of the devil. It is only by constant prayer that we gain control of our distracted thoughts.
Finally, there is our Lord’s desire to strengthen all who are afraid of death. By letting them see that he himself had experienced fear he would show them that fear does not necessarily lead to sin, provided one continues to resist it. This is the force of our Lord’s concluding prayer: Not my will, Father, but yours be done. He is saying: ‘Yes, Father, I am ready to die in order to bring life to many.’
5. St Ephrem of Syria, Diatessaron 20.3-4, 6-7 (CSCO 145:201-204); Word in Season II, 2nd ed.

Good Friday
2026-04-03
From a sermon by 6
ST LEO THE GREAT
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When our Lord was handed over to the will of his cruel foes, they ordered him, in mockery of his royal dignity, to carry the instrument of his own torture. This was done to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah: A child is born for us, a son is given to us; sovereignty is laid upon his shoulders. To the wicked, the sight of the Lord carrying his own Cross was indeed an object of derision; but to the faithful a great mystery was revealed, for the Cross was destined to become the scepter of his power. Here was the majestic spectacle of a glorious conqueror mightily overthrowing the hostile forces of the devil and nobly bearing the trophy of his victory.
As the crowd accompanied Jesus to the place of execution, the soldiers found a man called Simon of Cyrene, onto whose shoulders they transferred the weight of the Lord’s Cross. This action prefigured the faith of the Gentiles, to whom the Cross of Christ would mean glory rather than shame. By this substitution the atonement of the unblemished lamb and the fulfillment of all the rites of the old Law passed from the people of the circumcision to the Gentiles, from the children born of the flesh to those born of the spirit.
In the words of the Apostle: Christ our Passover is sacrificed. As the new and authentic sacrifice of reconciliation, it was not in the Temple, whose cult was now at an end, that he offered himself to the Father; nor was it within the walls of the city doomed to destruction for its crimes. It was beyond the city gates, outside the camp, that he was crucified, in order that when the ancient sacrificial dispensation came to an end a new victim might be laid on a new altar, and the Cross of Christ become the altar not of the Temple, but of the world.
You drew all things to yourself, Lord, when all the elements combined to pronounce judgment in execration of that crime. Figures gave way to reality, prophecy to manifestation, Law to Gospel. You drew all things to yourself in order that the worship of the whole human race could be celebrated everywhere in a sacramental form which would openly fulfill what had been enacted by means of veiled symbols in that single Jewish Temple.
6
St Leo the Great, Sermon 59.4-6 – Weds in HWK 444 (PL 54:339-341); Word in Season II, 1st ed.

Holy Saturday
2026-04-04
From a homily by 7
ST AUGUSTINE
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Today, my dearest friends, there is every reason for heaven to rejoice and earth to be glad. It is a day on which more light shines forth from the tomb than rays from the sun. When our Lord and Savior was born as one of us he brought light into the world; so also today, being dead in the body, he has illumined the underworld with the powerful presence of his divinity as well as of his human soul. Today at the Lord’s visitation there is leaping and dancing in the nether regions over the fulfillment of the prophecy: The people that sat in darkness(that is to say the whole human race enveloped in the gloom of Sheol) has seen a great light. He who created Adam has this day sought him out in the underworld, and by his own power has set him free.
Wonderful beyond words is the loving kindness of our God! Death had indeed invaded Paradise, but life has now conquered the abyss, and by assuming our mortality the Son of God has trodden underfoot the law that all must die. Thus he has made good the prophet’s assertion: O death, I will be your death! Those whom you have caused to die through sin I will gather up from that place of eternal ruin, and by dying myself I will deliver them from everlasting death.
Look now at the author of our undoing! With what snares he is entangled and fettered! As he deceived us, so he is himself deceived; in the very act of killing he is destroyed.
When the Lord’s body was laid in the tomb, he himself descended into the lowest and most hidden abode of the infernal regions. There, where he was presumed to be held captive, he bound death fast, and so broke the chains of all who had died. And from that place whence none had ever returned before, not even alone, he carried off an immense plunder with which he penetrated the heavens.
See what tremendous things God’s surpassing love has accomplished for our healing and restoration! For our sake he was led like a sheep to the slaughter, having taken upon himself the evils of this present life in order to bestow upon us the good things of eternity.
7
Sermo Mai 146: PLS 2, 1242-1243(CL I p 168-169).
