2026/03/29 SCRIPTURE REFLECTION
Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion
- Leo Rubinkowski, Manager of Events & Ministry Engagement
“…and I have not rebelled, have not turned back.”– Isaiah 50:5
I expect I am not alone when I acknowledge how deeply past sins still affect me. The Psalmist writes, “my sin is before me always,” and I get that. I know the mercy of my Savior—Reconciliation is a terrifyingly wonderful sacrament, to say nothing of the Eucharist—but memories of unintended slights and grave wrongs alike sometimes persist like scars: reminders, visible to those who know how to look, of choices I should have made differently and of lives I wish I had lived differently.
That scarring—wounds healed but impossible to forget—comes to mind this Palm Sunday because I am stuck on Peter. The first we hear of him from Matthew in this Passion narrative, he assures the Lord he will never lose faith, never deny Him. The last we hear of Peter—mere hours (horrible hours, but hours!) later—he “went out and began to weep bitterly” because of his denials. Peter is not mentioned along the road to Golgotha. He is not remembered by any of the evangelists at any distance of consequence from the Cross. He is absent when his Messiah and friend is taken from the wood and laid in the tomb. Others are present, but not Peter. I imagine he learned later from others, strangers or companions, about everything Jesus had suffered, and then wept yet more bitterly. Perhaps he learned about what had happened from John or even from the Blessed Mother. Such a scene is nearly too distressing to imagine.
Yes, Christ forgives him—that cannot and must not be ignored—but my heart goes out to Peter because I know he must have been deeply marked by his failure for the rest of his life. Even drawing courage from his memories to overcome himself and take up his cross for the Kingdom later in life, he must have been heartbroken that he was ever so weak when his Beloved needed him most.
The Lord teaches, “whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:38). Even before the Crucifixion, anyone hearing this teaching would have been taken aback by the imagery. Crucifixion was a torturous mode of execution used especially for political criminals—dissidents, revolutionaries, and enemies of the State—to impress upon the populace the power of the State to crush its enemies. In the wake of the Lord’s self-gift as Priest and Victim, however, the command is also a breathtaking, if implicit, reproach. It is my cross to take up because I have rebelled. I have not kept watch. I have betrayed. I have denied.
My heart breaks for Peter because, knowing my own weeping at the cross I bear, I simply cannot imagine his tears at the cross he bore.
In an awful way, Peter was absent from the Cross, and I hope his example is always an urgent reminder to me of my own inconstancy as a disciple, of my past abandonment of the Lord, and of my absences from the Cross.
Holy Week can be a spiritually exhausting experience; indeed, I pray it is. We have Paul’s hindsight, to be sure, and may we pray for his insight and inspiration: the Suffering Servant is raised and exalted, Whose name is above every name, the utterance of which sees every knee in heaven, on earth, and under the earth bend and every tongue confess to the glory of God the Father. But for this week—at all times, really, but especially this week—we ought to grieve, too, not because we remain in sin, but because we ever sinned in the first place.
Sin removes us from Golgotha. It keeps us from suffering with our Lord. It steals us away from His Passion. Yet, blessed be God, through grace, most immediately and recognizably poured forth through the Sacraments entrusted to the Church, Jesus returns us to His side, where He would have us remain always. Think of this as you gaze upon the Bread and Chalice during Mass this Sunday. There is the Lord’s flesh, the same Body and Blood offered in the Upper Room and on the wood of the Cross. However often we deny Him, He offers Himself for us. However often we abandon Him, He offers Himself back to us. However often we rebel against Him, He expresses His desire to receive us.
In the midst of this Palm Sunday gospel, my heart breaks for Peter, who wept bitterly. Yet I know that Peter also met the Risen Lord, was forgiven by the Risen Lord, and then, for the rest of his life, offered the Lord’s own sacrifice in the Eucharist. Again and again, Christ returned Peter to the Upper Room, to the Cross, and to His side. How sweet Peter’s tears must have been. How sweet should be our own.