Dear All,
Palm Sunday: this special week begins. In some languages it is known as ‘the Good Week’ – we call it Holy Week. So many emotions come to the surface during this week – and we begin with a noisy procession – sometimes called ‘the Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem’ – this seems so unlike the Jesus we have met in the gospels. Surely not Jesus’s initiative, but he allowed his followers this short time of excitement. But any sense of triumph will speedily evaporate. Our attachments today capture some of the ambiguity of the day – ‘good week’, a medley of moods and so on.
The blessing is from Fire of Love ‘A Blessing’. Let’s pray it for all of us asking that we remain faithful in our following of Jesus through the grim events that are to come. It is not difficult to see these events of 2000 years ago having obvious relationships to the world that we are part of & the suffering that so many people endure today.
Easter time information:
On Maundy Thursday, Good Friday & Holy Saturday we will be ‘zooming’ reflections. Do join us – length no more than 30mins.
Maundy Thursday at 5.30pm – link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83691405900?pwd=YitBa0xmcEpFbjB2RERaVHRZcll4dz09
Meeting ID: 836 9140 5900
Passcode: 505659
Good Friday at 7pm – link
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83821189101?pwd=NHYreFJvSEY2YkVHeXkwbTZVSW4xdz09
Meeting ID: 838 2118 9101
Passcode: 090093
Holy Saturday at 10am – link
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88496408183?pwd=VU9vWENhMFFBVXJaN2VkVXE0eGY2dz09
Meeting ID: 884 9640 8183
Passcode: 637731
If you don’t choose to ‘zoom’ on Holy Saturday we are also leading a ‘live’ reflection at 11.30am, (again no more than 30 minutes), in Blessed Sacrament Church, Melbourne Av. CM1 2DU. Anyone is very welcome.
Also, although we don’t usually ‘zoom’ Evening Prayer on a Saturday, on Holy Saturday we will have Evening Prayer at 5.30pm. The link is
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87386676086?pwd=N2FLZmdnUkVqcTRuT2IyV2NvZWg2UT09
Meeting ID: 873 8667 6086
Passcode: 173662
Yes, you’ve guessed it! Holy Saturday is a big day for us! (Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre).
Finally, for those who enjoy Evening Prayer – two things:
On Maundy Thursday & Good Friday there is no official Evening Prayer.
From, & including, Easter Sunday, we won’t be ‘zooming’ Evening Prayer. Beginning again on Sunday 15th April.
Wishing you well & with our love
Palm Sunday.
In the Augustiner Museum in Freiburg, there is a moving 14th century sculpture of Christ on Palm Sunday.
Christ’s long, slender face with a high forehead, inward-looking eyes, long hair, and a small forked beard expresses the mystery of his suffering in a way that holds the viewer spellbound. As he rides into Jerusalem surrounded by people shouting ‘Hosanna’, cutting branches from the trees & spreading them in his path Jesus appears completely concentrated on something else. He does not look at the excited crowd. He does not wave. He sees beyond all the noise and movement to what is ahead of him. His unfocused eyes see what no-one around him can see. There is melancholy but there is also peaceful acceptance – a strong determination to do God’s will. Above all, there is love, an endless, deep and far-reaching love born from an unbreakable intimacy with God and reaching out to all people, wherever they are, were, or will be.
Joy and sadness are born at the same time, both arising from such deep places in our hearts that we can’t find words to capture the complex emotions. But this intimate experience in which every bit of life is touched by a bit of death can point us beyond the limits of our existence. It can do so by making us look forward in expectation to the day when our hearts will be filled with perfect joy, a joy that no-one can take away from us.
Henri Nouwen
A Sonnet for Palm Sunday
Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,
The seething holy city of my heart,
The saviour comes. But will I welcome him?
Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;
They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing,
And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find
The challenge, the reversal he is bringing
Changes their tune. I know what lies behind
The surface flourish that so quickly fades;
Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,
The hardness of the heart, its barricades,
And at the core, the dreadful emptiness
Of a perverted temple. Jesus, come
Break my resistance and make me your home.
Malcolm Guite
What ‘Good’ is this?
Living Lord,
Was this the lifting high?
Humiliation seems complete:
forsaken by God;
deserted by friends;
mocked by many.
And in our ‘Holy Week’
We call this ‘Good’!
What ‘Good’ is this?
Loving Lord,
You bore our shame:
in truth our names
inscribe the gallows wood.
And in our ‘Holy Week’
We call this ‘Good’!
What ‘Good’ is this?
Good for us:
your isolation for our community;
your capture for our freedom;
your life for our sin.
And in this ‘Holy Week’
we call this ‘Good’
but not to gloss
the pain endured
as if your loss
was somehow spared.
Stephen Brown