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I do not like the phrase: Never cross a bridge until you come to it. The world is owned by men who cross bridges in their imaginations miles and miles in advance of the procession.
"If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days."
"If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days."
The triumphal entry has about it an aura of ambivalence, and as I read all the accounts together, what stands out to me now is the slapstick nature of the affair. I imagine a Roman officer galloping up to check on the disturbance. He has attended processions in Rome, where they do it right. The conquering general sits in a chariot of gold, with stallions straining at the reins and wheel spikes flashing in the sunlight. Behind him officers in polished armor display banners captured from vanquished armies. At the rear comes a ragtag procession of slaves and prisoners in chains, living proof of what happens to those who defy Rome.
In Jesus’ triumphal entry, the adoring crowd makes up the ragtag procession: the lame, the blind, the children, the peasants from Galilee and Bethany. When the officer looks for the object ...
THE REALITY OF PALM SUNDAY
Pope Benedict himself in his homily last Sunday in St Peter’s Square said this about Palm Sunday:
"But what are we really doing when we join this procession as part of the throng which went up with Jesus to Jerusalem and hailed him as King of Israel?
Is this anything more than a ritual, a quaint custom?
Does it have anything to do with the reality of our life and our world?
To answer this, we must first be clear about what Jesus himself wished to do and actually did.
After Peter’s confession of faith in Caesarea Philippi, in the northernmost part of the Holy Land, Jesus set out as a pilgrim towards Jerusalem for the feast of Passover.
He was journeying towards the Temple in the Holy City, towards that place which for Israel ensured (in a particular way) God’s closeness to his people.
He was making his way towards the common feast of Passover, the memorial of Israel’s liberation from Egypt and the sign of its hope of definitive liberation.
He knew that what awaited him was a new Passover and that he himself would take the place of the sacrificial lambs by offering himself on the cross.
He knew that in the mysterious gifts of bread and wine he would give himself for ever to his own, and that he would open to them the door to a new path of liberation, to fellowship with the living God.
He was making his way to the heights of the Cross, to the moment of self-giving love.
The ultimate goal of his pilgrimage was the heights of God himself; to those heights he wanted to lift every human being."
