Palm Sunday is the only Sunday of the year in which Mass attendees begin the service outside their church building and enter together.  The united movement symbolizes Jesus’ entry into the holy city, Jerusalem, where He was accompanied by a large crowd to inaugurate His passion.  “Jerusalem” means peace realized.  The ritual saunter also points us to the New Jerusalem that is written about in the final biblical book, Revelation, that tells of the heavenly city which brings forth spiritual renewal and a reawakening of faith; in addition it orients us to the biblical definition of peace which is more than the absence of conflict—it is the presence of harmony and completeness.  Whereas the old Jerusalem is a place of suffering and sacrifice, the New Jerusalem is depicted as the bride of Christ that brings forth new life where mourning turns to joy and sadness gives birth to hope.

In Carly Simon’s 1988 hit song Let the River Run, she sings of this New Jerusalem as spiritual grace that flows like water and from which rises a utopian vision of renewal, a silver city of human potential.  The anthem begins with these lyrics: “Let the river run, let all the dreamers wake the nation.  Silver cities rise, the morning lights, the streets that lead them and sirens call them on with a song.  Come the New Jerusalem…”  Written about the asphalt jungle of New York and the dog-eat-dog society where entrepreneurs fight for material achievement to get ahead of competition, she contends that people’s priorities are misguided.  Like Jesus who wept over ancient Jerusalem for its lack of love and compassion, she holds that a new way of operating, guided by empathy and understanding, can re-create a City of God on earth.

There is tremendous symbolism each year to view our sanctuary as Christ’s bride and our entry as His children who want to complete His earthly mission by making a better society.  His death is birth for the church.  Blood and water accompany newborns from the womb and usher in life.  The blood of sacrifice flows down Calvary’s hill, and the sorrowful passion of Christ still haunts city streets where kind souls dare to help those who carry heavy crosses; water represents the nourishing efforts that quench thirst and the cleansing acts that purify the wounded.  I believe that such acts carried out by Easter People help build the true Jerusalem that expands and towers in a world beyond.  At Catholic funeral Masses, the final prayer is offered over the casket or urn and petitions angels and martyrs to usher our loved ones into that holy city, the new and eternal Jerusalem.  Like Christ’s plea, our mission from birth to death is oriented toward a heavenly destination where true peace will be revealed.

As we enter our church sanctuaries to inaugurate Holy Week, we have much to ponder.  While we hold the image of blood and water flowing from the side of Jesus upon the cross, we contemplate the life that He gives the church through His death.  Blood symbolizes redemptive, sacrificial atonement of sin that we receive in Eucharist and water illustrates the cleansing and purifying grace of Baptism and the life-giving Holy Spirit that renews the face of the earth.  Maybe this Holy Week ritual can help us embrace our Christian task which, I think, is two-fold: to be one with others in prayer and sacrament that flows from our relationship with Christ and to reach out and accompany those who carry heavy crosses because of poverty, discrimination, a culture of violence, lack of resources, and other hardships.  I don’t know if we can create a New Jerusalem that rises to transform mourning into joy or sadness into hope but, by helping to carry their cross, we can share in their passion, bring compassion, and let them glimpse the New Jerusalem where, on some level, they will experience and realize God’s peace.