Mysteries of Palm Sunday

the following entry was written for our parish bulletin ... just wanted to share it with you here... svelte rogue

Back in the Philippines, Palm Sunday was time for me to play “The King of Glory” on the organ and watch the throngs of mass-goers wave their intricate palm fronds that the priest walked blessed with holy water. Palm Sunday signalled the start of an arduous week of one service after another that required choir participation, from the washing of the feet on Maundy Thursday; to the Stations of the Cross through village streets baking in the summer heat culminating at 3 PM in the church and the ensuing Veneration of the Cross ceremony; to the Sinakulo (or Cenaculo) performance of the Passion in the evening that ended at midnight; to the rise-sit-kneel of the endless readings of Black Saturday; to the fireball lighting up a pile of twigs to begin the Easter dawn celebrations; the Salubong (Tagalog, which means “Meeting” to refer to Jesus & Mary’s meeting on Easter morning) with matching angels singing a Latin hymn when the processions of Mama Mary and Son Jesus statues meet; until the elaborate Easter Eucharist with the dialogue gospel, renunciation of sin (I do I do and I do!), and renewal of Christian vows (I do yet again I do and I do!). Sitting on my comfortable perch at the organ with my motley crew of singers, images of the coming Holy Week were crystallised most clearly at the start of the gloomy Holy Week.

For some, it also meant counting the remaining days before they could hie off to the beach or highlands for some summer action, since most work ends on Wednesday to give people time to travel to the provinces, presumably to be with family to attend the Holy Week services. But for many Manila folk, this is a great opportunity to travel to vacation spots for a relaxing 4-day weekend of endless card games and booze.

The past two years, though, have found me and my family in Belgium, away from the searing summer Philippine heat. I realise bemusedly that a trip to the beach is wholly possible except that the North Sea off Oostende will be more chilly than I am used to. I see many similarities between the weekend Manila beach bums and almost all of Belgians planning activities for their family during the two-week Paasvakantie.

It has gotten to such a point that in any part of the Christian world I may be, whether in Asia or Europe, Palm Sunday signals the beginning of good times and fun.

Yet the gospels paint a different picture of this tumultuous day in Christian history. On this day, the unassuming Messiah rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and was greeted by waving palm fronds, the sum total of his kingship, kingdom, and people. Here was a glad entourage greeting their homely king, welcoming him into the heart of a city that would turn against him in the coming days, where the leaders of their faith would condemn him to the death sentence reserved for the worst criminals of the Roman estate.

One can point out that this would be the last day of glory and “fun” for Jesus before trekking the painful path of the Passion that lay before him still. How could his human self not have quailed at the thought of the suffering that could break anyone’s spirit?

Today, it is easy for us to approach Palm Sunday with the thought that even if Jesus did enter Jerusalem on this day filled with dread and trepidation, he would eventually come into his paradise, with the hopeful thief on the cross next to him, along with the cries and hopes of the oppressed, downtrodden and sad lives of a cruel world. We always rest secure in the knowledge that after the Passion lies the birth of new life, of Love reborn, of salvation forever within our grasp by the blood of his sacrifice.

Today I wake up to a Palm Sunday with more questions than answers, befuddled and confused as to what stance I must take in order to prepare meaningfully for the coming days. I am torn several ways, both familiar and not, between the rites and rituals of my past experiences, of someone rooted in a deeply Christian culture, of someone who was born in a country where every day one encounters Christ’s Passion in the suffering faces of my co-Filipinos, of someone transplanted into another culture where this same suffering has been cocooned into the colourful easter eggs and marzipan packs found in shops.

I pray that for those of us gathered together on this special morn, the steady footfalls of donkey steps form the rhythmic backdrop of what is still to come --- a taste of pain and suffering that can only end in love and eternal life.