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Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

Prayer for Palm Sunday

Giver of light, your steadfast love endures forever. Open our hearts to the Blessed One who comes so humbly, on a borrowed colt. Open before us the gates of your justice, that we may enter, confessing in heaven and on earth that Jesus is Lord. Amen.

Prayer for Humility

Oh heavenly Lord, let me enter the city with your son today; let me sing of glory to my King, your son, the very Son of God, riding on a donkey, keeping company with shepherds and prostitutes, with the blind and the leper, with the abandoned and oppressed. Let me be filled with joy at Christ's coming and follow the One who welcomes the sinner and dines with the outcast. Let me touch and see as God draws near, riding in triumph towards the Cross.

Time and time again I imagine myself riding the greatest white horse, striving in my petty vanity to earn the praise of men, vaulting myself above others. Please keep our Lord's great acts of humility always in my mind, that I might be well-pleased to seek holiness rather than honor among men, and glory for you rather than myself.

For a Blessing on the Families of the Land

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who sets the solitary person in the comfort of families; I commend to your continual care the homes in which your people dwell. Put far from them, I beseech you, every root of bitterness, the desire of boastful vanity, and the pride of life. Fill them with faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness. Knit together in constant affection those who, in holy wedlock, have been made one flesh; turn the heart of the parents to the children, and the heart of the children to the parents; and fill us all with true love and charity, so that we put aside petty differences and act with kind affection and the sympathy of brotherly love; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Dedication

God of mercy, swift to help: as my lips pour forth your praise, fill my heart with the peace you give to those who wait for your salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.

1 Peter 3:15 (NIV)

John 12:12-19 (NKJV)

Jesus Enters Jerusalem

The next day a great multitude that had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, and cried out:

"Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! [ Psalm 118:26] The King of Israel!"

Then Jesus, when He had found a young donkey, sat on it; as it is written:

"Fear not, daughter of Zion; Behold, your King is coming, Sitting on a donkey's colt." [Zechariah 9:9]

His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done these things to Him.

Therefore the people, who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of his tomb and raised him from the dead, bore witness. For this reason the people also met Him, because they heard that He had done this sign. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, "You see that you are accomplishing nothing. Look, the world has gone after Him!"

Notes on the Scripture

Today's scripture is celebrated as Palm Sunday. It was the day when Jesus was widely proclaimed as the Messiah by the Jews of Jerusalem; like Castro marching into Havana, or Charles de Gaulle marching into Paris at the end of WW2, the people widely believed that the Messiah prophesied for a thousand years or more, memorialized in the Hebrew Bible, had arrived and was marching triumphantly into the city to liberate it. As foretold, he rode on a donkey. Even the Pharisees were temporarily taken aback.

The Pharisees were not necessarily Jesus' enemies. Many of them were on the fence, either as a matter of faith or simply as a matter of political astuteness. They thought that Christ was a political figure who was rebelling against the Sanhedrin — his most avid opponents were the great high priest Caiaphas and the Sadducees, including the powerful Annas. The Pharisees quoted at the end of today's lesson seem, mainly, to want to pick the winning side before it's too late.

As the Jewish leaders had feared, there is a great popular swelling of support for Jesus. The catalyst for this had been the spectacular, and very public, raising of Lazarus from the dead in Bethany, just outside Jerusalem's walls.

There is a great dramatic irony in the scene. We know, and the apostles know, that although Jesus is the Messiah, he does not care about earthly power and has no intention of becoming the temporal king of Israel or assuming the political power of the High Priest. He is operating in a completely different sphere. His real revolution is to occur at a level most of them cannot comprehend, because they have not listened to or absorbed his teachings.

The people hail him as a savior. The Sanhedrin fears him as a revolutionary leader. But, although they are correct that he comes to bring a new order, they are substantially clueless about his intentions. For he comes, not to liberate the Hebrews from slavery to Rome, but to liberate all mankind from the slavery of sin.

Daily Inspiration

“ Wave Your Palm Branch ”

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