4th Passiontide
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| Hipolyte Flandrin |
Palm Sunday
Matthew 21: 1-11
And they approached
Jerusalem and came to Bethphage by the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus sent two
disciples ahead and said to them, “Go to the village which you see before you,
and at once you will find a donkey tied there and her foal with her. Untie them
and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord
needs them, and he will let you take them right away.”
This took place to fulfill
what was spoken through the prophet:
‘Say to the daughter of
Zion,
Behold, your king comes to
you in majesty.
Gentle is He, and He rides
on a donkey and on a foal of the beast of burden.’
The disciples went and did
as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the foal, placed
their garments on them, and Jesus sat on them.
Many out of the large
crowd spread their clothes on the road, while others cut branches from the
trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of them and
followed Him shouted:
Hosanna to the Son of
David!
Blessed is he who comes in
the Name and Power of the Lord!
Hosannah in the highest!
[Sing to Him in the highest heights!]
When Jesus entered
Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is he?” The crowds
answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
4th Passiontide
Palm Sunday, March 29,
2015
Matthew 21: 1-11
The images and pictures of
Holy Week reveal a secret. In mythology, the donkey is a symbol for the
physical body – Brother Ass, as St. Francis called it. Many of us may feel ourselves
submerged within our bodies. Or perhaps
the body feels like a runaway donkey dragging our spirits along. Or perhaps,
especially as we get older, we may feel our body as a burden that we are coaxing along behind us like an unwilling and stubborn animal.
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| Monk with a Donkey, Buongiorno |
Christ came to help human
beings establish a new relationship to their physical nature. The image of
Christ riding the donkey and its foal in majesty is a picture of our own
future. We will one day lovingly and gently master our bodily nature and it
will carry us where we want to go. The picture image of the new young foal even
hints at the future development of a new kind of body.
Here at the beginning of
Holy Week Christ directs His body toward Jerusalem and its Temple. After today
He will enter and leave every day on foot, until late Thursday, when he will
remain, entering into the body’s death process. And at the moment of death, the
birthing of a new kind of body, the resurrection body, will begin. Step by step we can accompany this process,
for
Behold,
your king comes to you in majesty.
Gentle
He is,
and he rides on a donkey
