Hosanna to the Son of David!
This weekend, Holy Week begins with the Sunday of Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem – Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion. Although Good Friday is coming – the Passion and Death are coming – for the moment, this moment, joy resounds as our King arrives in His city.
In most parishes throughout the world, the principal Mass is celebrated by a procession of the people into the church, waving palm branches.
When Jesus and the disciples drew near to Jerusalem,
to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives,
he sent two of his disciples and said to them,
“Go into the village opposite you,
and immediately on entering it,
you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat.
Untie it and bring it here.
If anyone should say to you,
‘Why are you doing this?’ reply,
‘The Master has need of it
and will send it back here at once.'”
So they went off
and found a colt tethered at a gate outside on the street,
and they untied it.
Some of the bystanders said to them,
“What are you doing, untying the colt?”
They answered them just as Jesus had told them to,
and they permitted them to do it.
So they brought the colt to Jesus
and put their cloaks over it.
And he sat on it.
Many people spread their cloaks on the road,
and others spread leafy branches
that they had cut from the fields.
Those preceding him as well as those following kept crying out:
“Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come!
Hosanna in the highest!”(Mark 11:1-10: Cycle B Reading at the Procession with Palms)
But the joy of the Messiah’s arrival in Jerusalem is short-lived. The next reading from Isaiah (Is 50:4-7) is the third song of the suffering servant. In this prophecy we hear the confusion, but also the confidence, of the man beaten and abused on account of his witness, but who knows that God stands with him.
The Responsorial Psalm is the heartbreaking Psalm 22, a prophecy of the Passion and Crucifixion, with the response, My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
A same note of devastation followed by hope comes to us in the form of the Epistle, which is worth quoting in full. No excerpt can really do it justice, for it is the very summation of the mystery of the Incarnation:
Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.(Phil 2:6-11)
(attributed to Blessed Fra Angelico)
And then. And then, we come to the Passion. This year, we hear Mark’s version (Mark 14:1—15:47). The Missal has the narrative split into three voices, plus the crowd. There is something eerie and horrible about the congregation, taking the part of the crowd, shouting “Crucify him!” It really does put you in that time and that place.
I encourage all of you to attend Mass on Palm Sunday.
Catholics, of course, should be going every week anyway, but to my non-Catholic Christian friends, I offer this plea: please, please try to attend these services of Holy Week at a Catholic Church. There is something about living through these events by participating in these liturgies that can’t be summed up in mere words.
It will bring you closer to Christ by placing you, just for a moment, deep within the events of our Salvation history.
The great Triduum liturgy begins on Holy Thursday, continues through Good Friday, and reaches it’s triumphant climax at the Easter Vigil.
On a personal note, one of my favourite images from our celebrations at my former parish of Holy Rosary is from the entrance into the church on Palm Sunday of 2017. In it, we see Father Wichert our pastor escorted by Father Jerry Sherbourne and our (then) Master Altar Server Gary Rose. You can see the choir coming in behind them – including my lovely bride, Francine.
Well, this morning on my Facebook feed I saw a photo of the newly-minted Deacon Gary Rose at his new parish of Our Lady Queen of Heaven, posing with the pastor Father Vinner Raj. My heart absolutely soared at this! Deacon Rose is a good man, and it’s great to see a vocation begun at Holy Rosary come to such fruition. Ad multos annos!
