Today we listen to the Gospel passage telling of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and the long passage recounting his passion and death on the cross.    We recall the most important events of salvation history, which we are powerfully reminded of on the threshold of   Holy Week.                             It is worthwhile for us to consider today with whom we most identify in this Gospel account with the figure who was next to Jesus, or with the behaviour of the crowd – the euphoric one when they welcomed Jesus entering Jerusalem, or the crowd demanding his death on the cross a few days later.                                                                                                                                  Today too, Christ wholeheartedly wants to enter other people’s lives through you, on the “humble donkey of your daily life”.   Jesus very much wants each of us to give a clear witness of Him through: the work that is done properly and honestly, especially the work of a professional or vocation in life, through sincere, self-sacrificial help and concern for the welfare of others.

Christ wants to be present in the world through us – in the most ordinary, everyday situations, to go out to people “using the humble donkey of our sometimes dull lives”. As St Teresa of Avila wrote: “Christ has no hands but yours. He has no feet but yours… You are the feet on which he walks to do good. You are the hands with which He now blesses all    people”.      We enter today through a ‘spiritual gate’, beyond which the ‘skyline’ of Holy Week unfolds before us. Let us strive to live this time in a deepened way, enriched by the fruits of Lent and open to the spiritual – priceless treasures of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection.