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A call to mercy demands action, courage and sacrifice - Reflection for Palm Sunday
Jesus enters Jerusalem to the sound of Hosannas - a moment of triumph, hope and possibility. But Palm Sunday is also one of tension and sorrow. It reminds us that mercy and justice are not about fleeting enthusiasm but about faithfulness to the work of love, even when it costs us.
As Jesus rides on a donkey, the people wave palm branches and proclaim, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” (Luke 19:38). Yet, we know how quickly the cries of praise turn into shouts of condemnation.
The journey of Holy Week reveals the cost of justice and mercy - Jesus does not wield power as the world expects. He enters in humility, knowing that his path leads to suffering, betrayal and death. And yet, this suffering is not in vain. It becomes the very means of transformation and new life.
This calls us to a challenge: how might our own willingness to stand for justice and mercy, even at a cost, be a witness of hope? The call to mercy is not passive - it demands action, courage, sacrifice and presence. Before we serve, we must first listen deeply**.** As Catherine McAuley wrote: “It is better to relieve a hundred impostors - if there be any such - than to suffer one really distressed person to be sent away empty.”
This is the heart of Mercy in Action. It is not transactional but relational, rooted in the dignity of the other. Palm Sunday places us at a crossroads - between celebrating Jesus when it is easy and standing with him when it is costly. Pontius Pilate listened to the wrong voices - choosing safety over truth.
We must ask ourselves: Whose voices do we listen to? And do we hear the cries of the poor, the oppressed, the displaced? Or do we, like the crowd, remain silent when it matters most?
St Thomas Aquinas once pronounced, “Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution; justice without mercy is cruelty.” To be people of justice means to choose truth over comfort and solidarity over silence.The Apostle Paul, in Philippians 2:6-8, reminds us of Christ’s ultimate act of humility: *"*though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself ... being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross." This is the paradox of our faith: the greatest act of hope was born in the deepest suffering.
Dr Peter Kuzmic, a foremost evangelical scholar and Christian leader, said it best when he said, “Hope is the ability to hear the music of the future. Faith is having the courage to dance to it today.” Hope is not naive optimism. It is an active resistance against despair. As Walter Brueggemann reiterates: “Hope is the refusal to accept that suffering and injustice have the final word.”
This Holy Week we must sit with the challenge to either wave palm branches in celebration or carry the cross in solidarity? Where will we stand when the cheering stops? Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was not just an event of the past. It is a living invitation today - to be people of mercy, justice and hope.
May our hope be unshaken, not because suffering is absent, but because we know that mercy transforms, justice restores and love endures beyond the cross.
Ultimately, our witness must be more than words - it must be lived as Mercy in Action embodying justice and compassion, not in theory, but in the way we show up for the suffering, the persecuted and the forgotten.Mercy in action is hope in action.
Reflection Question:
Where is God calling me to move beyond words into action, embodying mercy and justice in a way that brings real hope to others?
ENDS
Elizabeth (LIbby) Blom is from Brisbane, Australia. She is a member of MELF Cohort 4.
Libby's educational background encompasses public relations, communications, journalism, and graphic design. Currently, she is pursuing a Master's of Theology. Her achievements include building lasting relationships, fostering community, and welcoming migrants and refugees to Queensland. Libby considers being a mother to five children her most significant accomplishment. Libby views and attempts to live Mercy as a verb, embodying the qualities of generosity, forgiveness, guidance, protection, and giving to others.