Readings for April 13, 2025 — Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion:
All in one place:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041325.cfm
In the context of each Bible book:
What I’m saying (about the readings and beyond) this week:
It’s daunting even considering writing a post about this week’s readings. They’re so well-known, and I’ve referred to events described this week in a general way in so many other posts. It’s hard to process the events described in them. It’s hard to take the events in on more than an intellectual level. I pray to be able to take some small part of them to heart.
What stands out to me from this week’s readings:
This week’s gospel recalls the past but signals the start of something new. To say that Christ’s Passion, the ultimate passage from the old to the new, will be painful is the epitome of an understatement. And yet it’s a passage that Christ and his disciples cannot avoid. It’s a passage filled with contrasts and contradictions, and it leads us to who Christ and his disciples are.
The following passages stand out to me:
[Peter] said to [Jesus], “Lord, I am prepared to go to prison and to die with you.” But he replied, “I tell you, Peter, before the cock crows this day, you will deny three times that you know me.”
Luke 22:33-34[Jesus] said to the [apostles],
Luke 22:35-37
“When I sent you forth without a money bag or a sack or sandals,
were you in need of anything?”
“No, nothing, ” they replied.
He said to them,
“But now one who has a money bag should take it,
and likewise a sack . . . .
For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me,
namely, He was counted among the wicked;
and indeed what is written about me is coming to fulfillment.”Luke 22:48
Jesus said to him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”When a maid saw him seated in the light,
Luke 22:56-57
she looked intently at him and said,
“This man too was with him.”
But he denied it saying,
“Woman, I do not know him.”
This week’s gospel also presents again and again questions related to identity.
The last quotation I included above is an exploration of both contradiction and identity. Here are some other explorations of identity that stand out to me:
“Blessed is the king who comes
Luke 19: 38
in the name of the Lord.
Peace in heaven
and glory in the highest.”
Luke 22:66-70Then an argument broke out among them
about which of them should be regarded as the greatest.
[Jesus] said to them,
“The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them
and those in authority over them are addressed as ‘Benefactors’;
but among you it shall not be so.
Rather, let the greatest among you be as the youngest,
and the leader as the servant.Luke 22:25-26
[The Sanhedrin] said, “If you are the Christ, tell us, “
but he replied to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe,
and if I question, you will not respond.
But from this time on the Son of Man will be seated
at the right hand of the power of God.”
They all asked, “Are you then the Son of God?”
He replied to them, “You say that I am.”
The centurion who witnessed what had happened glorified God and said,
Luke 23:47
“This man was innocent beyond doubt.”
What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:
Anne Abrome, SSS presents the events of Holy Week as experiences that we go through with Christ and that Christ goes through with us.
This week’s prayer:
Lord, help us to remember Your presence in our joys and struggles this week. Grant us also the grace to experience Your joys and sorrows in our hearts. Help us to remember that the joys and sorrows of those around us are also Yours. Amen
Works cited:
Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion Lectionary: 37 and 38.” Daily Readings, Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 2nd typical ed, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2025, https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/033025-YearC.cfm.
Sitting with the Sacred 
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