Holy Week is a study in contrasts, Diocese of Allentown Bishop Alfred Schlert noted during the celebration on Palm Sunday, which is the beginning of Holy Week and the final Sunday before Easter.

"It's hard not to notice the striking contrast in the liturgy today," the bishop said in a Sunday Facebook post. "We begin by announcing a great jubilation that our King has come! … We carry within our hands the very instruments of celebration—the palm branches that give us great joy. We rejoice that we are Christian.

"Then, almost as soon as the priest approaches the Sanctuary, the tone changes drastically. The jubilant tone is replaced with a somber one, a tone of pain and sorrow."

That's not the only contrast, though.

"This contrast is also found in our spiritual life," Schlert said. "We rejoice with Christ when we are thankful for our faith. Do we, however, walk with Christ to Calvary? Or do we leave him to suffer alone like Peter did. Christ is there in our darkest and most shameful moments of our lives. He wants to be there. He wants to comfort us."

The Gospel reading for this year was an excerpt from Luke 22, a release on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops website said. 

The passage opens with the Last Supper, where Jesus broke bread with his disciples. This was when Jesus instituted the Eucharist, telling his disciples that the bread was his body and the wine was his blood, which would be shed for them. He then said he knew one of his disciples would betray him.

Jesus and the disciples went to the Mount of Olives, but the disciples fell asleep while Jesus was praying, the release said. He prayed so fervently that "his sweat became like drops of blood." The passage went on to describe Judas' betrayal, Jesus' arrest and trial before Pilate, and finally, Jesus' crucifixion. 

In Rome, Pope Francis celebrated Palm Sunday Mass and had his own message to convey. In his homily, he noted that those who were surrounding Jesus during the time leading up to his crucifixion kept urging him to "save himself."

"Against this self-centered mindset is God's way of thinking," Francis said in a Sunday release by the Vatican. "The mantra 'save yourself' collides with the words of the Savior who offers his self." 

The pope went on to emphasize the fact that as he was being crucified, Jesus asked God to forgive those who persecuted him, the release said. He connected that forgiveness to the way God is willing to forgive us for our sins.