St John the Evangelist Parish

April 13, 2025

Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

“As he rode along, the people were spreading their cloaks on the road” (Luke 19:36)

Consider how useless it is to spread your clothes on the ground for a donkey to walk on. The clothes get smeared with hooves, and who knows the grimy places where they’ve been? The animal may leave some unsavory presents on them. They may get stolen by a thief looking to make a buck. The thorns, thistles, rocks, and muck of the road will leave stains. The clothes may never be useful again, and you’ll probably walk home shivering without your usual covering. Yet this is precisely the gesture the people employ to welcome Jesus and his donkey. Why does this detail matter?

Wastefulness is an essential part of celebration. Consider the unnecessary extravagance of Christmas decorations, confetti and ticker tape parades, baseball players spraying each other with bottles of champagne after a victory, birthday gifts for kids, and so on. This wastefulness signals celebration and, therefore, participation in higher identities (as believers, winners, and parents, to mention the above examples). That’s what the wasted cloaks are all about. Those who donate their cloaks participate in Christ’s kingship in Jerusalem — and we savor it two thousand years later.

The lesson? Learn how to “waste” money, time, clothes, and food on Christ. We do this at Mass, but in so many other ways, too, like serving the poor, going on retreats, and doing prayerful study. When we practice this holy wastefulness, Jesus will ride into our lives, and we’ll be more deeply members of his kingdom.