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Bishop's Homily for Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

March 29, 2026

(Tom_RG / Shutterstock.com)

Homily of the Most Reverend Larry Silva, Bishop of Honolulu
[Community of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace – at the Kamiano Center]

I often fly to the Mainland, and the planes typically have individual screens on the seat-backs so that passengers can watch the movies of their choice. If I look up at any of those screens at any given time, I can usually see acts of violence taking place on most of them. Fist fights, gun play, vehicular violence, and cosmic wars are standard fare. Of course, the hero or heroine of the movie is usually able to endure tremendous threats and blows yet remains unharmed. It is amazing how much we allow ourselves to consume images of people dehumanizing other people; killing others without any remorse and seemingly without any consequences.

The story we just heard in the Gospel today could very well serve as the screenplay for one of these seat-back movies. There is the disloyalty of friends, betrayal for money, mockery of the victim, brutal scourging, and the entertainment spectacle of public crucifixion. But in this story the main character does not escape the hatred, suffering and violence perpetrated on him. He takes no vengeance on anyone and never seems to have the upper hand. He uses no weapons to defend himself and he submits to the suffering like a lamb being sheered or led to the slaughter. He would be considered weak beyond belief.

Yet we know that this is a story not of hatred but of love – true love. It is love in the face of disloyalty, betrayal, mockery, scourging and a violent death. It is how much God loves us sinners. He turns the other cheek. He forgives rather than takes revenge. He submits to the worst sins imaginable not out of weakness, but with the strength of divine love for us wayward sinners. He turns his stricken cheek again and again to enter the unspeakable violence of our hearts in order to transform them and give them the same peace that he had in laying down his life for his beloved. This is why we call this story the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. He loves us so passionately that he willingly submits himself to the worst manifestations of our sins in order to change our hearts with his passionate love.

We know, of course, that this story of violence and defeat that we hear today has a sequel, and that sequel we will celebrate next Sunday when we rejoice that the One who willingly suffered so much indignity and pain for us rose from the dead, not to condemn those who persecuted them, but to breathe on them the Holy Spirit of his peace.

And just as the many stories of violence on which we so often feast our eyes can make us more violent and uncaring in our relationships with others, this story of God’s passionate love for us, is meant to have an effect on us. With the Spirit of such passionate love, we can leave our comfort zones and reach out to those who are most in need, whether the homeless and hungry who are always with us, or to those recently suffering because of the floods here the last couple of weeks. We can spend our precious time visiting those who are in prison because they have committed violent and hateful crimes and share with them the light of love. Or at least we can pray for them. We can reach out to those who are suffering the burdens of illness or old age – and to those who care for them – so that their sufferings can become more bearable and find meaning in the passionate love of God we share with them.

It is a shame how much we allow so much violence in our entertainment to make our society a more violent and inhumane reality. But it is a joyful challenge to focus on the Lord Jesus, who willingly gave himself up to suffer hatred and violence to show us the true meaning of love and of life. It is a challenge to take up the crosses of our lives willingly and joyfully, so that, with Jesus, we too can live the sequel of victory over sin and death and share that victory with all the world, with God’s passionate love.