Holy Week 2026: The Passion of Christ and Palm Sunday Reflection

Are you following the real Jesus or just your idea of Him? As we enter Holy Week 2026, Nicole reflects on the Palm Sunday transition from glory to the Cross.

Palm Sunday 2026: Do we follow the real Jesus or just our idea of Him? In this episode of Rebel Saints, we enter into Holy Week (Year A). We explore the dramatic shift from "Hosanna" to "Crucify Him" and ask a difficult question: Did the crowds turn on Jesus because He was not the King they expected?

If we are honest, we often do the same. In this Catholic reflection, we walk through the Palm Sunday readings including the Passion of Christ (Matthew 26 to 27), Isaiah 50, Psalm 22, and Philippians 2. We uncover a truth that cuts deep: we do not just follow Jesus. We often follow our own expectations of Him.

In This Episode

• Holy Week 2026: Navigating the transition from the triumphal entry to the silence of the Cross.
• The Passion of Christ: Why the expectations of the crowd led directly to betrayal.
• Catholic Spiritual Growth: Moving from a surface level faith to a real, sacrificial relationship with Christ.
• The Liturgy of the Word: Breaking down the specific readings for Palm Sunday (Cycle A).
• The Kingship of Jesus: Contrast between a political revolutionary and the Suffering Servant.

Liturgical and Scriptural References

• Gospel (Procession): Matthew 21:1 to 11
• Gospel (The Passion): Matthew 26:14 to 27:66
• First Reading: Isaiah 50:4 to 7 (The Suffering Servant)
• Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 22 (My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?)
• Second Reading: Philippians 2:6 to 11 (The Kenosis of Christ)
• CCC 559 to 560: The Messianic entry into Jerusalem.

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Transcript

Rebel Saints - Palm Sunday Catholic Holy Week Reflection Cycle A - 2026

00:00:09 Speaker: This is Rebel Saints, the podcast where you and I try to make sense of this whole messy, beautiful, exhausting life where we trip over our weaknesses one minute, reach for holiness the next, and somehow believe God is still writing a story with all of it because he is. Amen to that, friends. today we are talking about Palm Sunday This week's readings are essentially a collision on one side, celebration on the other suffering. We begin with palms in our hands and we end at the cross. So, friends, I just popped open a can of Red bull. I am ready to dive into this with you. It's Holy week. I've got so much on my plate and I'm sure so many of you do. But let's take a moment to kind of settle down, telling myself that and let's focus on what we're going to be, uh, reflecting on today.

00:01:17 Speaker: Let me paint the scene for you. Jerusalem is loud. Dust is rising in the streets. There is movement, anticipation. Electricity is in the air. And then he comes. Jesus enters the city riding on a donkey. Not a warhorse. Not surrounded by soldiers. There are no banners or weapons being displayed. Essentially, there's no declarations of political power. He's riding on a donkey And yet the crowd explodes. They are shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! They are throwing cloaks on the ground. They're waving palm branches in the air. This is what you do for a king. They recognize something real, but they don't understand what kind of king he is. What they expect kingship to look like is not what Jesus is bringing to the table. All right, if I must, I will play devil's advocate here, although very begrudgingly, if I have to admit. These poor, poor, misguided people. They were crying out for a Messiah, one who would finally break the Roman stranglehold. The Iron Boot that had been crushing their necks and stealing their freedom for far too long. They wanted Jesus to step in like a divine liberator, clap his hands, and make the entire oppressive system vanish in an instant. Their hope was pinned on a Messiah who would ride in and visibly, politically, tangibly restore Israel. Kick out the Romans, raise up their nation, and make everything right again in the here and now.

00:03:13 Speaker: So when they saw Jesus, they weren't just cheering for him. They were loading him up with all of their expectations. They wanted a king who would fix what was right in front of them, right? Like the way they had always imagined it. He deliberately rides in on a donkey, a choice that was not accidental by any stretch of the imagination. You see, in the ancient world, a king charging in on a warhorse meant conquest, dominance and raw power. But a king on a donkey. That would have been a clear signal of peace. So Jesus isn't hiding his intentions. He's making a statement. Just maybe not one the crowd was dying to hear. And Jesus does not reject being king. He refuses to be that kind of king. Jesus isn't riding in to conquer with swords or strength. He's coming to conquer with love. A fierce, restless, endless kind of love. He knows exactly where this road is headed. Straight for Calvary. And still he rides forward. That's the kind of king we follow. The one who chooses humility over power, obedience over glory and love over everything. And you know what drives me crazy? Like what? Oh my gosh, what drives me absolutely crazy is they've seen this before. David versus Goliath, right? You'd think they would have caught the bigger picture. And honestly, oh my gosh, I get so irritated with them ... Because just one week later. One single week, the same crowd shouting Hosanna today, The same people, the same streets, the same hearts. They turn around and cancel him. And then I have to stop and ask myself, is my irritation only because I already know how the story ends? Is it easy to judge them? Because hindsight is twenty twenty? Like I know all the answers, right?

00:05:37 Speaker: If we're really honest, would we have done anything differently? We praise him. We call him Lord. We say we trust him. But underneath it all, we're often carrying our own list of expectations. We want him to fix things on our schedule. We want him to remove our suffering quickly. Or better yet, why do we even need to suffer at all? We want him to open the right doors. Slam the wrong ones shut, and make the road ahead clear of all traffic. We want a king who makes life work the way we want it to work. If getting closer to Jesus is the goal, then we can only look at Palm Sunday and ask ourselves this question. Do I follow Jesus, or do I follow my own idea of Jesus? Remember, Jesus does not reject being our king, but he refuses to be the kind of king we keep demanding because the king we often want can't actually save us. So if we look to our first reading this week from Isaiah, we're introduced to the suffering servant. I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard. My face. I did not shield from insult and spitting. These words, they were written centuries before Christ. Yet they describe him almost perfectly, don't you think? The servant doesn't fight back. He trusts, he endures, and he keeps going even when it hurts. And I know, like, my gosh, if we look at the world and all like the pain and the suffering and the anger and the hatred that we're seeing in the world today, it can kind of feel like this is everybody. Like we're all just suffering, right? And I think we need to look at it from this point of view. The same spirit is being offered to us right now. when life smacks you around, whether it's a difficult relationship, financial stress, health struggles, our own doubts. do you run? Or do you offer your back like the servant, trusting that God is with you? Jesus is not a king who dominates. This is a king who offers himself freely, completely, without resistance.

00:08:20 Speaker: And then we come to the responsorial Psalm, Psalm twenty two, and it begins with that, oh my gosh, that gut wrenching cry, My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Those same words will later fall from Jesus own lips on the cross. And yet despite the despair in those words, the Psalm still lifts our eyes and turns us towards hope. You who fear the Lord, praise him. In the second reading from the Philippines. Saint Paul describes Christ like this. He says Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness and found human in appearance. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Do you see the contrast here? The crowd shouts, Hosanna! Save us! Imagining salvation as strength, triumph, and a dramatic rescue. But Jesus defines salvation as surrender, humility, and sacrifice. They're waiting for a king who will rise up in power. And Jesus becomes the king who willingly goes down, down into their suffering, down into rejection, down into death. Not out of weakness, but because He's saving us in the exact way we would never have chosen for ourselves, never could have imagined for ourselves. And this is why the gospel today moves so quickly from triumph to tragedy. Because the same crowd that shouts Hosanna will soon shout, crucify him! And like, it feels like a shock to the system because their expectations. You know, they weren't met, right?

00:10:25 Speaker: Jesus did not become the king they wanted. So they rejected the king they needed. I don't know, make it make sense. But like they just you don't know what you don't know, right? And they didn't trust. They had no trust in God's plan. And I think that's how we can make sense of the times when we're suffering or, you know, when we feel like humiliated by life, you know, that we just have to trust in God's plan. And again, it's not just their stories, it's ours. Because we can we do praise God in one breath and get frustrated with him in the next. We trust him completely one moment and question everything he does the next. It's human nature, and most of the time, you know, for many of us, it can be a tug of war, right? Um, that comes from the same place. He's not following the script we wrote for him. And so we can't control any of that. And I think as you know, people, that's that's where we struggle sometimes, and so  if we think of it in this way. What if. What if Jesus isn't failing us? Like at all. Because he's not like. Spoiler alert. But what if we're asking him to save us in ways that are too small? What if we're reaching for comfort? But he's offering us transformation. And like I always say, like, you know, when things are going bad and you know, like life has peaks and valleys. And when we're in the valleys, I always try to like remind myself, God is stretching me. Like, how can I learn from this? How can I grow from this? What does God want me to learn from this? Um, and I think that's, that's where, you know, our hearts and our minds and our souls, everything can kind of be He transformed. So while we're demanding control, Our Lord is inviting us into surrender.

00:12:36 Speaker: And this is where. We really have the opportunity to grow and shift in our understanding and in our relationship with Jesus. Because Jesus is not showing us who he is. He is showing us what it means to follow him. If he is a king who chooses the cross, then we can't follow him while avoiding it. If he is a king who empties himself, then discipleship will involve letting go. If he is a king who loves to the point of suffering, then love, real love, sacrificial love will cost us something. And that is the invitation of Holy Week. Not just to watch the story unfold, but to allow ourselves to step into it, to walk with him, to allow our expectations to be challenged, to let go of the version of Jesus we have constructed and encounter who he actually is. And then this week's readings bring us to Matthew's account of Christ's passion. We walk with Jesus through it all. The betrayal by Judas with a kiss, the Last Supper, the agony in Gethsemane, the trials, the scourging, the crown of thorns, the long walk to Calvary, the nails, the darkness, the cry from the cross. And the final breath. It is heavy. It is heartbreaking. And it is the greatest act of love our world has ever known. Because here is the truth. You beautiful, beautiful, restless hearts. The crowd was right. He is the king. Just not the king they expected. And not always the kind we expect either. But he is exactly the king. We need a king who does not just fix our circumstances, but redeems our souls. A king who does not avoid suffering but transforms it. A king who does not stay distant but walks straight into the darkest parts of our lives and says, I am not leaving you here. The Catechism of the Catholic Church helps us see this clearly. Christ's passion was no accident. It was the perfect sacrifice that merited our justification. Jesus offered himself on the cross as the spotless Lamb and his blood became the price that atones for every sin we have ever committed or ever will. What Isaiah foretold, what the Psalm cried out, and what Paul sang about all of it finds its fulfillment in the cross. This is how God reconciles the world to

00:15:56 Speaker: himself. So what does Palm Sunday mean for us right here, right now? It means we don't just wave palms today and forget tomorrow. We carry them home as little signs of victory. Well, you know, many of us tuck one behind a crucifix in our house, place one by our door, Keep it in our Bible. Put it in our cars. Whatever you do with these palms, put them someplace where you can see it regularly would be my recommendation. And being mindful, like make a decision that every time you see it, let it remind you. That you are walking with Jesus. Not just this Holy Week, but every single day of of your life. All right. So Coming up with a challenge this week for me was a struggle. And then I remembered, a friend of mine when I was pregnant with my daughter And she had told me to lay my worries at the foot of Christ during consecration, during mass. And so, friends, that's what I encourage you to do this week. Anything that is causing you pain, suffering that you're feeling. Anything at all that you're you're carrying around, that's heavy, big or small, offer it to the Lord like the suffering servant. It could be a hard conversation, a financial worry, a moment when you felt abandoned or overwhelmed. Offer it up. And if if you look at your life and you're like, well, I don't I don't have anything like that, then praise God, like, you know, give thanks for your blessings and then perhaps when you receive communion offer it, offer that up for someone else who, who is suffering. what I want you to do is just lay it at Jesus's feet. Say a simple prayer. Jesus, I give this to you, I trust you. Empty yourself a little more. Obey a little more and watch what God can do with even the smallest acts of love. Rebel Saints, Palm Sunday isn't really about pretty branches. It's about a king who rides in humble, suffers in love and rises victorious. This Holy Week, let's follow him all the way through the cross and into the empty tomb. Because we don't follow a dead hero, we follow the living God who conquered death for you and me. Let's close with a prayer together, shall we? In the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit. Lord Jesus, on this Palm Sunday, we shout, Hosanna with the crowds. But we also walk with you toward Calvary.

00:19:09 Speaker: Give us the courage to empty ourselves. The humility to obey. And the hope to know that Easter Sunday is coming. Mary, mother of sorrows and joy, pray for us. Saint Joseph, protector of the Holy Family, watch over us, and all you holy saints in heaven, cheer us on. In the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Friends, grab your palms, and let's live this Holy week like the rebel saints we are called to be. I'll see you back here as we journey through Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and into the joy of Easter.

00:19:51 Speaker: I would love to hear from you. I want to know if you like what I'm doing, come say hello on social media, you can find us by searching at Rebel Saints podcast. You can find me on Substack and Patreon the same way, even emailing me Rebel Saints podcast at gmail.com is perfectly fine. And if you got something out of today's episode, please hit that follow button and be sure to leave a review. It is honestly the best way to help other restless hearts like us find this show. Until next time, stay rebellious by chasing that call to sainthood. Keep close to Jesus. I love you. I'm Nicole, and this is rebel Saints. For restless hearts called to be saints. Restless hearts. You are welcome here.