HOSANNA ! (OH LORD, SAVE US!)

Palm Sunday recalls Our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem at the very beginning of the same week in which He would be arrested, tortured, condemned to death and executed on the cross.

       All four evangelists tell us of this dramatic moment in Our Lord’s journey to Calvary, but it is St. John who tells us the detail which gives the day its name: that the people of Jerusalem cut branches off palm trees to wave in celebration of Jesus’s coming among them.

      It is worth concentrating on this event now, not only because it gives the day its name and sets the scene for the week ahead. The Gospel at Mass on Palm Sunday is always one of the accounts of the Passion by Matthew, Mark or Luke. Hence this Sunday’s other name: “Passion Sunday”. (St. John’s Passion is always read on Good Friday).                             

~   Fr. Paul Dobson