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Lancaster Cathedral 2012
Palm Branches |
Today we will celebrate Palm
Sunday and remember the day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. The
crowds greeted Jesus as a King and waved palm branches for him yet only days
later the crowd's cheers changed to 'crucify him'. Palm Sunday marks the
beginning of Holy Week – a week when we are called to journey with Jesus
through his suffering, death and resurrection.
Hosanna means "Save!" or "Give salvation!"
Fisheaters website - customs from around the world for what people do with their palm crosses and also a diagram of how to make a palm cross.
CCC 559 How will Jerusalem welcome her Messiah? Although Jesus had always
refused popular attempts to make him king, he chooses the time and prepares the
details for his messianic entry into the city of "his father David". Acclaimed
as son of David, as the one who brings salvation (Hosanna means "Save!"
or "Give salvation!"), the "King of glory" enters his City "riding on an ass".
Jesus conquers the Daughter of Zion, a figure of his Church, neither by ruse nor
by violence, but by the humility that bears witness to the truth. And so the
subjects of his kingdom on that day are children and God's poor, who acclaim him
as had the angels when they announced him to the shepherds. Their acclamation,
"Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord", is taken up by the Church in
the "Sanctus" of the Eucharistic liturgy that introduces the memorial
of the Lord's Passover.
CCC 560 Jesus' entry into Jerusalem manifested the coming of the
kingdom that the King-Messiah was going to accomplish by the Passover of his
Death and Resurrection. It is with the celebration of that entry on Palm Sunday
that the Church's liturgy solemnly opens Holy Week.
