Blessed be God.
Praise be Jesus Christ, forever and ever. Amen.
Come, Holy Spirit—fill us with joy and set our hearts ablaze with Your presence.
It’s all about choices.
Your choices.
My choices.
God’s choices.
And yes—God’s choices are real.
But they are not reactive.
God truly wills, chooses, and acts—
yet His choosing is never a back‑and‑forth deliberation like ours.
Because God is actus purus—pure act—
fully alive, fully knowing, fully loving,
without hesitation, without process, without change.
So when Scripture says God “chooses,”
it is a real divine decision,
expressed in human language so we can understand.
And on Palm Sunday,
Jesus makes a choice.
A deliberate, quiet, unstoppable choice.
He rides into Jerusalem
not on a war horse,
not in a chariot,
not with soldiers or banners or trumpets—
but on a donkey.
A beast of burden.
A creature made to carry weight.
And that’s the point.
Because Jesus came to carry something.
He came to carry us.
Matthew tells us,
“Behold, your king comes to you, meek and riding on an ass.”
He rides the animal that will carry Him toward the Cross,
but in truth—
He is the One carrying the real burden.
He carries the sins of the world into Jerusalem.
He carries them before Caiaphas as false witnesses rise against Him.
He carries them before Pilate as the crowd shouts for His death.
He carries them in the wood of the Cross
all the way to Golgotha.
And the heartbreaking truth is this:
everyone He loved abandoned Him.
They fled.
They denied.
They hid.
And we hear their voices echo in our own:
“Surely not I, Lord!”
But we know better.
We know the places where we hand Him over.
Because in some way, each of us asks the world:
“What will you give me if I hand Him over to you?”
We ask it not with words,
but with choices—
with prejudice, hate, and quiet resentments…
with addictions and secret sins…
with the lies we tell,
the shortcuts we take,
the idols we chase.
Given the choice between Jesus and the world,
too often we answer with the crowd:
“Barabbas.”
And from the Cross,
Jesus looks at us—
not with anger,
not with condemnation,
but with that aching cry:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
He feels the weight of our distance.
He feels the sting of our choices.
He feels the loneliness of our sin.
Yet He stays.
He does not climb down.
He does not call the angels.
He does not save Himself.
Because He is saving you.
St. Paul tells us,
“He emptied himself… becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”
He gave everything—
His body, His blood,
His breath, His life.
He became the true Beast of Burden,
carrying what we could never carry,
lifting what we could never lift,
paying what we could never pay.
And why?
Why choose this road?
Why choose this Cross?
Why choose this death?
Because it was never just about the burden.
It was always about the love.
A love that does not run.
A love that does not quit.
A love that does not wait for us to be worthy.
A love that rides into Jerusalem
knowing exactly what awaits Him—
and still says yes.
Palm Sunday is not simply about palms or processions.
It is about a King who chooses you.
A Savior who carries you.
A God who loves you to the very end.
He has already chosen you.
He has already carried you.
He has already loved you
with a love stronger than death.
As Holy Week begins, listen to Him:
Walk with Me.
And that—
that is what His choice is all about.
Be good. Be holy.
And this week—and every week—
choose Jesus Christ,
choose to spread His Good News
by the way we live our life
and love one another.
Praise be to Jesus Christ, forever and ever.
Amen.
