In Holy Land on Palm Sunday, cardinal calls Christians to ‘hope against all hope’

Rome Newsroom, Apr 14, 2025 / 11:49 am

On Palm Sunday, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, called on Christians in the Holy Land to “hope against all hope” during a difficult time, remembering that Christ’s resurrection, not death, has the final word.

“This is our vocation: to build, to unite, to tear down walls, and to hope against all hope,” Pizzaballa said in his message, according to Vatican News. “The Passion is not God’s last word to the world. The Risen One is. And we are here to affirm it once more — with strength, with love, and with unshakable faith.”

Catholics in Jerusalem marked Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week on April 13 with the blessing of the palms and Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — Jesus’ burial site — followed by a procession through the same streets Jesus walked during his triumphant entry into the Holy City before his passion and death.

“We know we are living through difficult times,” the cardinal and patriarch said April 13. “But we are not here today to speak only of hardship. We are here to proclaim with strength that we are not afraid. We are children of light, of resurrection, of life. We believe in a love that conquers all.”

For the first time since 2017, the Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches are celebrating Holy Week and Easter on the same days. While Pizzaballa celebrated Mass for Palm Sunday at the altar of Mary Magdalene in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian Churches held their liturgies at different altars around the “edicule.”

Pizzaballa in his message reminded Christians that “Jerusalem has always been and will always be a house of prayer for all peoples. No one can possess her.”

“We belong to this city,” he added, “and no one can separate us from our love for Jerusalem, just as no one can separate us from the love of Christ.”

After Pizzaballa blessed palms from Jericho and olive branches from the Franciscan Convent of the Holy Savior in Jerusalem, clergy and lay Catholics processed three times around the rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre to symbolize the three days Christ spent in the tomb.

Following Mass, Catholics took to the streets just outside the Holy City to continue the procession, beginning at the Shrine of Bethphage on the eastern part of the Mount of Olives and ending at St. Anne’s Church at the Lions’ Gate leading to the Old City of Jerusalem.

“You are the ones that keep the flame of the Christian faith alive, here in Jerusalem, and you keep alive the presence of Christ in our midst,” the Latin patriarch said at the end of the procession, which walked the same route taken by Jesus during his triumphant entry into Jerusalem — the event commemorated by Palm Sunday.

“Here, today, despite everything, at the gates of his and our city, once again, we declare wanting to welcome him truly as our king and messiah, and to follow him on his path toward his throne, the cross, which is not a symbol of death but of love,” Pizzaballa said.