Palm Sunday 2026

Welcome to St Mary’s Cathedral Hobart, parishioners and our guests, for this Palm Sunday Mass.

We have just listened to the Passion. It has been read with beauty, but what it tells is stark, confronting, and deeply personal.

Palm Sunday always carries this strange tension. At the beginning, there is praise and acclaim. The crowd welcomes Jesus with enthusiasm, almost triumphant. There is a sense of hope, of expectation, and of pride. But it does not last. It turns. It collapses. And we are left standing before the reality of the suffering to come at the end of Holy Week.

That movement—from praise to rejection—is not only the story of those days in Jerusalem. It is also, if we are honest, the story of the human heart.

We would like to think that we would remain among those who welcomed him, who honoured him, who stayed faithful. Yet the Passion gently, but unmistakably, draws us in. It does not allow us to remain spectators. It asks us a question: where am I in this story?

For it is not only the distant crowd that cries out. In the quiet compromises of life, in the moments where we fail to love, where we turn away, where we choose ourselves over others, we recognise something of that same movement within us. We may not have stood there in Jerusalem, but we know that we have been there in spirit.

And yet, the Gospel is not a story of accusation. It is a story of love that does not turn back.

Jesus enters Jerusalem knowing what lies ahead. There is no illusion. No sudden change of plan. He knows the frailty of those who praise him. He knows the weakness of his friends. He knows the cruelty that will unfold. And still, he goes forward.

There is a quiet resolve in him—a steadfastness. Not defiance, not resignation, but love. He entrusts himself completely to the Father.

That is what we have just witnessed.

And perhaps that is where the Passion according to Matthew meets us most deeply. Because each of us, in our own way, has a “Jerusalem” before us. Some burden, some uncertainty, some suffering, some call that we would rather avoid. The temptation is always to turn away, to retreat, to protect ourselves.

But Jesus shows another way.

He walks forward in trust. He remains faithful in love. Even when abandoned, even when misunderstood, even when everything seems lost—he does not let go of the Father, and he does not let go of us.

This week we will follow him more closely. We will stand at the table where he gives himself. We will stand at the Cross where he pours himself out. And, in time, we will stand at the empty tomb.

But today, we begin here.

Not with easy answers. Not with triumph. But with a love that is steadfast, a love that suffers, a love that saves.

And perhaps the quiet prayer that rises within us today is a simple one:

Lord, when I falter, hold me.
When I turn away, call me back.
And when my own Jerusalem lies before me,
give me the courage to walk with you.

For in the end, this is our boast—not our strength, not our goodness, but this: that we are loved by Christ who gave himself for us.

Most Rev. Anthony J. Ireland
Archbishop of Hobart
29 March 2026