Do we truly know the voice of Christ? Do we truly respond to the voice of our shepherd with our own distinctive voice? How often we attempt to imitate those around us, appropriating the response of another member of the flock to Christ. Perhaps we need to balance the image of being sheep of one flock with the image from the second reading, which tells us that we are all children of God. What child has precisely the same interaction with parents as his or her siblings? Instead, they frequently do and say things to distinguish themselves in the eyes of their parents.

It is interesting that during the Easter season, when we do not hear a reading from the Old Testament, it becomes so important. This is particularly true today. Peter’s speech begins with a prayer formula familiar to Jews: “The God of Abraham . . .” (Acts 3:13). It likewise contains the potent phrases “Holy and Righteous One” and “mouth of all the prophets” (3:14, 18). Peter was stating in no uncertain terms that the law, psalms, and prophets had been fulfilled in Christ.

The desire to be able to prove the existence of a divinity has troubled humanity since human consciousness first became aware of the divine. To this very day we are fond of saying that any number of things—from sunsets to hot fudge sundaes—are “proof that there is a God.” We get so caught up in the story of “doubting Thomas” that we fail to notice that today’s Gospel gives us John’s account of Pentecost, the bestowing of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples following the Resurrection.

During the first three or four centuries of Christianity, if you asked a Christian to name the feast days of the church, your answer would have been a puzzled stare, for there was only one feast: the Resurrection of the Lord. Every Sunday was a feast celebrating the one great feast. Even though our calendar now has many beautiful and holy feasts, we must continually be called back to the fact that all these other feasts exist because of the feast of Christ’s Passover from death to life. The psalm today proclaims this message well: “This is the day.” It is not one of many days, but it is the day of all days, the one that gives all the others their origin, purpose, meaning, and destiny. Listen carefully to Peter’s speech in Acts with its recollection of the Passion, to the words of the apostle Paul, and to the account of Mary Magdalene, John, and Peter finding the empty tomb, and you will hear the many wonderful works that God has done for us through Christ. Rejoice and be glad!

For the Palm Sunday Gospel, we return to the Gospel according to Mark. The account of the Passion takes up nearly one-third of Mark’s entire Gospel and, of all the evangelists, he is the one who presents the details most graphically. He depicts the humanity of Jesus most intensely, describing his sufferings thoroughly. Mark portrays Jesus as a complete fulfillment of the “Suffering Servant” of Isaiah, the obedient, humble slave dying on a cross of whom Paul speaks in Philippians. But it is important to remember that we call this “Holy Week” and not “sad week” or “suffering week,” for each of the readings today, even the lamentations of the psalm, end in the promise of the strength and hope that is granted by God to those who faithfully give of themselves in love. As we enter into this week through these readings, we must reflect deeply on the sufferings of Jesus, but still be confident in the joy of risen, eternal life that awaits all of us who faithfully walk with him through these days.

Today’s first reading is an enormously important passage, not only in the history of the Jewish people, but also for us as disciples of Jesus, who see in it a foreshadowing of the Christian dispensation. The prophet announces that God has chosen to forgive the people, and that as a sign of divine forgiveness a new covenant will be established. Contrasting the new covenant with the one made with Moses on Mount Sinai, Jeremiah says that the new covenant will be written on the people’s hearts rather than on tablets of stone.

Today’s reading from the second book of Chronicles contains a sort of “mini-history” of Israel. It highlights God’s mercies in choosing Cyrus the Persian to be an instrument of deliverance when the people were in captivity in Babylon. Despite their sinfulness and the deserved punishment they were undergoing, God’s mercy was lavished on the people in the form of a miraculous act of liberation.

In previous weeks we have seen how the theme of covenant — as a preparation for the baptismal covenant celebrated at Easter — occupies an important place in our cycle of Lenten readings. The notion of covenant as a relationship between two parties carries with it an expectation of mutual accountability and fidelity to the terms of the covenant.

The first reading today continues the “history of salvation” narrative that we hear throughout Lent this year. Today’s story was among the best-loved in the Jewish tradition (surely Joseph told the story to young Jesus as he formed him in the ways of their faith); the early fathers of the Church were very fond of it as a means of explaining the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

Lent is the time of year we devote to scrutinizing our lives in the light of our baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus. Today’s readings are a nice shorthand catechism of what our baptized lives mean. As Noah passed through the waters of the flood to a covenant with God, so did we enter into a covenant, a promised relationship with God through our baptism.

Today’s readings present a contrast between “Jesus’ way” and the “old way.” An example of the old way is the law given to Moses and Aaron about leprosy: the leper was unclean and cast out of the community. Jesus’ way is the opposite: the leper is reached out to, touched, and finally cured.

Today’s readings begin with a few verses from the book of Job. First, Job complains that his nights drag on endlessly. Then, worse yet, “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; / they come to an end without hope” (Job 7:6). Not exactly encouraging, these lamentations, not when taken alone.

Most of us have been there, though, and the antidote is the “good news” that Paul found so compelling that “an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it!” (1 Corinthians 9:16). Paul felt driven to announce the gospel to as many people as possible, “to save at least some” (9:22).