This weekend is Palm Sunday. It is a very special day that many look forward to each year. For Palm Sunday Mass we get to literally enact what we read about in the Gospel. As the people, including children greeted Jesus with palms, we, too, use palms to help us spiritually enter into the celebration.
  I think a big reason why so many of us love Palm Sunday is because it is a liturgy that is different from the norm. It is a Mass that is different from what is usually done on Sundays. Because it is so different it helps to give us an insight into what Liturgy is. Romano Guardini, one of the more prominent theologians in the 20th century, uses the analogy that the Liturgy is like children at play. When young toddlers play they don’t seem to know totally what they’re doing, or even what they’re saying, but somehow it all works. When young children are playing it is good and pleasing.
  The same goes for us at every Liturgy, but we  see this more clearly at special liturgies, such as Palm Sunday. Yes we use palms because they were used to greet Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem. The visible and tangible things used in the Liturgy help us to enter into the mystery of God. God is a mystery to us, so what is done to penetrate that mystery, i.e. the Liturgy, will also seem mysterious to us. I personally think the more mysterious the Liturgy seems the more effective it is at revealing the mystery of God.
  Palm Sunday is one of these days. We wave our palms and sing, “Hosanna in the highest!” We are like children at play, playing at the feet of our Heavenly Father. We don’t totally understand why we are waving our palms, we don’t know what “Hosanna” means, but we do and say these things anyway. Deep in our hearts, at the level that is hard for us to use human words, we know that this is right and just to do. It is a good and holy thing, and so we do it every year.
  The same enthusiasm and anticipation can be present at every Liturgy we attend, whether it’s Palm Sunday, or daily Mass on a Tuesday morning. Regardless of the day we can be like children at play before the feet of our Heavenly Father. And even Jesus Himself said that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to the childlike. With each Mass we attend, may all of us become more like children, babbling and playing at the feet of the Father.