Palm Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons

April 2 2023

The liturgy of Palm Sunday in the Latin rite collates two themes, the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem but also his Passion and Death. In some ways it makes things a bit heavy, perhaps just too much crammed into one celebration?

On the other hand all of Holy Week is bound up in those events and by our remembering and gathering for worship, draws into our orbit all those for whom the Lord gave up his life, all who in our time and world suffer and die. The Passion and death of the Christ are here amongst us in those we daily see in the media.

Yet to dwell only on this aspect of Holy Week would not do Palm Sunday full justice. It is good and wise for us to focus on that aspect of welcome, triumph, the joyful acclamation of the crowd, the hosanna we still sing today! For into our midst known and despised by certain groups because of inner fear and disturbance , but welcomed by children , the Word made flesh, the Divine person of Christ was revealed to the children, the poor, yes the animals all, and the outcasts before all else.

Here in that entry into Jerusalem we see Salvation riding on the humble colt, coming in a power none of us yet fully understand! A power we seem to feel uneasy with because we are so used to the trappings of might , yes even in the Church. But as Jesus points out the revelation of God, the true discernment of the mighty works of the All Holy are not revealed easily to the powerful ones, but to those who are as true children.

Here perhaps is our vantage point this Palm Sunday, to let our gaze rest on the downtrodden World we have trashed, to see in the colt, in the children, in the humility of Jesus a call as Pope Francis has taught in his ministry, to learn a new song not only "Hosanna to the Son of David" but to take on board our task of blessing, for in creation, in all that are connected to us a song of praise rises , the Laudato si of St Francis is another song for this day, for in the midst of death and destruction comes new life.

May we, as we take our palms or greenery, place them in our homes, blessed by those who we remember in our processional Gospel, creations living beings, and amongst us humans, the many faces of Christ in the little ones of life!

Blessed are we too - who come into our world in the name of the Lord!

Lectio Divina

Zechariah 9:9-10

The Coming King of Zion

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall speak peace to the nations;
his rule shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.

GK Chesterton (1874-1936)
The Donkey

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Catholic Chaplain for the Melkites in the UK. He is also an Ecumenical Canon of Christ Church, Oxford.