Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion
Palm Sunday is also bittersweet. The shouts of Hosanna will soon turn into shouts of “crucify him” and “We have no King but Caesar.” What his followers understood as a tragic loss or defeat will last only a short time. The promise of the new covenant on Holy Thursday is understood when Christ, our Eucharist, finds his dwelling place within our hearts, and he forever nourishes us.
On March 29, 1865, Saint Peter Julian Eymard received an adverse decision from the Congregation of Cardinals in Rome regarding his request to acquire the actual site of the Cenacle in Jerusalem for his new religious order, the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament.
He had traveled to Rome and spent a long time in a retreat, awaiting the results of his petition to Pope Pius IX to purchase the Cenacle building and establish a foundation there. The news that his proposal was rejected was a major disappointment, which he summed up in the simple words: “Nothing for me, no one, and asking for the essential grace: nothing by me”.
Despite this apparent failure, Eymard accepted the decision in a spirit of abandonment to God’s will. This experience led him to a deeper mystical understanding of the “Interior Cenacle,” a realization that the true dwelling place of Christ’s love was within the human heart. He left Rome the next day, on March 30, 1865, with a renewed spiritual focus on this inner reality.
How do you experience God dwelling within you?
Prayer:
Lord, not my will, but your will be done.
