The Church puts both palms and thorns together this Sunday, in commemoration of both Christ's triumphal entry on a donkey into Jerusalem and the suffering He had to endure a week later. It is both a Sunday of the Palm and a Sunday of the Passion.

It is one of those occasions in the Church when life makes less sense than it should. Many years ago, in the old liturgy of the Church, the Gospel reading on the Passion Sunday was greeted with profound silence. There would be no homily following the reading. In fact, even the acclamation after the reading ("The Gospel of the Lord") was omitted.

Because it is difficult to justify how life comes through death, deliverance through suffering, triumph through tragedy. Perhaps this paradox is best proclaimed through imagery than through eloquent speech.

So let us just place the palms and the thorns together, and in silence, contemplate the paschal mystery into which we are called.