Psalm 22: 8-9, 17-20, 23-24

For Palm Sunday our responsorial comes from Psalm 22, a deeply prophetic psalm that begins with anguish but ends in hope and trust in God’s deliverance. Its forceful imagery is so realistic that it’s difficult to distinguish factual description from poetic metaphor.

Jesus cried out the first verse of this psalm while nailed on the cross (Matthew 27:46). In that moment, he revealed the full depth of his humanity. Though he remained fully divine, Jesus was also fully human. He willingly experienced the darkest depths of human suffering, including the sense of abandonment. His cry is not one of despair but of solidarity: a God who suffers with us and for us.

Many Church Fathers and scholars have understood this cry as more than a personal expression; it is also a deliberate reference to the entire psalm. In the first-century Jewish world, Scripture was not organized by chapter and verse; instead, passages were commonly referred to by their opening line. By invoking Psalm 22 in its entirety, Jesus calls to mind its full arc: from desolation to deliverance, from agony to praise.

Continue reading “Psalm for Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord (ABC)” →