By MARY STADNYK
Associate Editor
UPDATED April 14, 2025
The story of Jesus’ Passion and Death “is not about Jesus being the victim of a wicked plot,” Father Al Gamalo said during the Palm Sunday Vigil Mass he celebrated in St. James Church, Red Bank, April 12.
The parochial vicar said the story “is about God’s obedient son, who willingly and voluntarily gave of himself to fulfill his father’s saving plan.”
PHOTO GALLERY: Palm Sunday Mass in St. James Church, Red Bank
“At his weakest, stretched between heaven and earth, with both arms extended on either side, hanging on the cross, Jesus is most powerful because he is accomplishing God’s saving will for the world,” Father Gamalo said. “The crucified Jesus is the visual representation of how much God loves us.”
For Catholics and Christians throughout the world, Palm Sunday opens the door to the most sacred and solemn week of the liturgical year and specifically commemorates Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, when he was greeted by cheering crowds waving palm branches that they placed on the ground along his path. Throughout the days of Holy Week, Catholics and Christians around the world gather in their churches and with their faith communities to participate in the liturgies surrounding Christ’s Passion and Death on Good Friday and Resurrection on Easter.
Making sense of Jesus’ suffering
In his homily, Father Gamalo said that while it is deemed logical and moral when the guilty are sentenced to prison or they suffer or even die for the crime they committed, when the innocent suffer, it’s regarded as “one of the enigmas of human life.”
He said that “for the innocent to suffer for a crime he did not commit, that is beyond human understanding.”
“Reason does not provide any basis for it; that is why it is beyond human comprehension why Jesus should undergo his Passion and Death,” Father Gamalo continued. He noted that, despite his hanging on the Cross for a crime he did not commit, Jesus still prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
“Can there be a more graphic demonstration of teaching, to love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, to bless those who curse you and to pray for those who mistreat you?” Father Gamalo said.
‘The character of our God’
He said Jesus’ Crucifixion “shocked us. It shocked the world.”
“Not because of its violence, but because of its demonstration of utterly, unfathomable, illogical and scandalous love that is the revelation of who God truly is,” Father Gamalo said. “Jesus nailed to the Cross is the maximum revelation of the character of our God. This is the irony of the Cross.”
Lisa Testa, cantor for the Mass, recalled being about 8 years old when she realized the significance of Holy Week; she said that, ever since, she has found the various movements of the week to be deeply meaningful.
“There’s such an enormity to every ritual, to think that our Lord died for our faith. I don’t think there is anything that could top that,” she said. She added that she appreciates her upbringing in the Catholic faith, her involvement in the Church as a musician and how it was engrained in her to “always make her faith a priority and Jesus the center of our lives.”
A young St. James parishioner takes a palm at the start of Mass.