You may remember as a child how Palm Sunday was filled with feelings of lightness and generosity. You got a sweet-scented palm, replacing the dry one burnt to ashes. Burning the old and replacing the new meant that soon a basket of candy would be appearing.

What’s the point of the Passion? It’s a question many Christians are too polite to ask. We worship beneath crosses that are fearful and strange and make us uncomfortable. We proclaim a gospel that takes a terrible route through horror and agony before arriving at its gracious victory.

That is when one of the Twelve, the one named Judas Iscariot, went to the cabal of high priests and said, “What will you give me if I hand him over to you?” They settled on thirty silver pieces. He began looking for just the right moment to hand him over.

The wonderful 2016 Martin Scorsese film Silence is the story of two 17th-century Jesuit priests who travel from Portugal to Japan to find a missing missionary. The priests enlist the help of an alcoholic fisherman named Kichijiro to guide them in their search.

Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins, and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.

The one who seeks not the cross of Christ seeks not the glory of Christ.