ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 29 MARCH 2026
It’s a week for processions. Before Mass we all joined Christ’s solemn entry into Jerusalem with our palms and songs. On Thursday, oils will be brought in procession for consecration for the sacraments in the year ahead. That night we will take the Lord out of this basilica and into the darkness for adoration. On Friday morning, a convoy will make its way around the Stations of the Cross, and in the afternoon we will all creep to that Cross. Most dramatically, at the Easter Vigil on Saturday night, we will bring the Easter fire into the darkness of the church-become-tomb, as Christ our Light rises from the dead.
That’s a lot of solemn movement in a week, and it certainly gets the archbishop’s step-count up, but what does it all mean?
Processions are common enough in secular ceremonial: think ANZAC Day marches, state openings of parliament, or academic graduations. Catholic culture has always been big on processions: for feasts and funerals, with bells and smells, statues and banners, relics and rose petals, song and dance. On Rogation Days, our medieval ancestors walked the parish, praying, singing and beating the boundaries with sticks; sometimes they beat the boys as well, so they’d always remember where the borders were! Modern Aussies are more restrained, but we are not averse to an entrance procession at Mass with cross, candles, banners and ministers, or a Walk with Christ complete with monstrance, canopy and 20,000 devotees!
Half a million people took part in the Blessed Sacrament procession to this cathedral at the 1928 International Eucharistic Congress; we might even better that in 2028! All this reflects the view that our faith should be public, corporeal, and ‘progressive’—in the sense that it takes us places.
Catholic processions are clearly about more than getting from A to B. Two things to think about each time you take part in a liturgical procession such as the Communion line.
First, it is primarily God’s procession towards us. In sending His Law and Prophets and finally His Son into the world, in making His joyful way with us to Jerusalem and His mournful way to the Cross, and in all the Church’s processions until the end of time, God comes to us, again and again, solemnly, even bodily. Paul sang to us today (Phil 2:6-11) about the procession of the Son of God, down to earth and back to heaven, first ‘emptying’ Himself of divine glory, taking human form and dying for us, then ‘refilling’ Himself with glory in the Resurrection and Ascension. And it was all for our sake, that “every knee might bow and every tongue profess that Jesus is Lord—to the glory of God the Father!” God is the principal protagonist of our every procession: we simply join Him in descending into darkness and ascending into glory. For each time He enters into our Jerusalem, it is to bring insight, healing, salvation; each time, to join us in our suffering and cares, that we might share in His healing and renewal.
Every liturgical procession is God coming to us. But it is also our procession towards God. That’s obvious enough as we proceed into church, to the Cross, to Holy Communion. But it should be the story of our whole lives, from the day we were carried from the steps of the church to the font, to the day that we are carried from the steps of the church to the grave. Our whole life should be a movement towards God.
In today’s first Gospel (Mt 21:1–11) people accompanied Jesus as He entered Jerusalem, waving palms, throwing cloaks, singing Hosannas. In our second Gospel (Mt 26:14–27:66), disciples made convoy to the cenacle for the Last Supper, to the Garden for the prayers and arrest, some to the trial, crucifixion and burial. Both Gospels tell the story of our journey with Christ. On that expedition there can be many twists and turns. We sometimes stray. But every liturgical procession invites us to realign ourselves with Christ and the faithful. To ask ourselves what progress we are making toward God. To resolve to keep on track with Him with psalms and palms for the rest of our days. To hope to arrive at our heavenly destination in the eternal Easter.
