Palm Sunday in Jerusalem

The holiest period on the Christian calendar has begun with holiday celebrations in Jerusalem. 

Bells summoned the Christian faithful to Palm Sunday prayers at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem’s Old City, the traditional site of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.  Palm Sunday is the beginning of Easter Holy Week and marks Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

According to the New Testament, people threw palm branches on the road to welcome Him when he rode into the city on a donkey.

Inside the church, priests and pilgrims held a festive procession around the ancient stone sepulcher of Jesus. They waved palm and olive branches, engulfed in a fragrant cloud of incense.

The pilgrims came from all over the world…

There has been a big turnout of pilgrims for many years, thanks to a lull in Israeli-Palestinian violence. Jerusalem’s walled Old City will be packed with Jewish and Christian pilgrims this week because Easter coincides this year with the week-long biblical Feast of Passover…

The above was here.

CNN has a video of events there here.

Wishing I was there too…

We Still Have So Much To Learn…

Doctors pronounced this baby dead, but after 2 hours of the mother holding him in her arms, he started breathing again.

Watch.

HT:   Fr Z

Persecuted for his Cross: Electrician Told he Faces the Sack

For having a Christian symbol on his van’s dashboard:

 

An electrician faces the sack for displaying a small palm cross on the dashboard of his company van.

Former soldier Colin Atkinson has been summoned to a disciplinary hearing by the giant housing association where he has been employed for 15 years because he refuses to remove the symbol.

Mr Atkinson, a regular worshipper at church, said: ‘The treatment of Christians in this country is becoming diabolical…but I will stand up for my faith.’

Throughout his time at work, he has had an 8in-long cross made from woven palm leaves attached to the dashboard shelf below his windscreen without receiving a single complaint.

But his bosses at publicly funded Wakefield and District Housing (WDH) in West Yorkshire – the fifth-biggest housing organisation in England – have demanded he remove the cross on the grounds it may offend people or suggest the organisation is Christian. Mr Atkinson’s union representative said he faces a full disciplinary hearing next month for gross misconduct, which could result in dismissal.

The association strongly promotes ‘inclusive’ policies and allows employees to wear religious symbols at work.
It has provided stalls at gay pride events, held ‘diversity days’ for travellers, and hosted a gender reassignment event entitled A World That Includes Transpeople.

Mr Atkinson, who has an unblemished work record, said he had not been shown similar respect.

‘The past few months have been unbelievable, a nightmare,’ he said. ‘I have worked in the coal mines and served in the Army in Northern Ireland and I have never suffered such stress. The treatment of Christians in this country is becoming diabolical. It is political correctness taken to the extreme.’

But he added: ‘I have never been so full of resolve. I am determined to stand up for my rights. If they sack me, so be it. But I am standing up for my faith.’

The above and the rest of this sad story is here. These equality laws will still be the undoing of politically correct ‘multicultural’ England, where, by the way, the ‘wearing a burka at work would be considered discreet’.

Glad I don’t stay there… Or I’d really be in trouble:

Palm Sunday Video

Here is a nice little Palm Sunday video:

Upon How Many Donkeys Did Christ Ride into Jerusalem?

Or how Jesus saves both Gentiles and Jews. On the Gospel for the Palm Sunday Procession:

Some modern so-called biblical “scholars” have noted that, while St. Matthew speaks of both an ass and a colt (that is, both the adult and the foal donkey), the other Gospel writers specify only the colt. These men, considering themselves wiser perhaps than the Spirit who inspired the sacred text, have then proceeded to conclude that St. Matthew (or whosoever wrote this Gospel) erred in his interpretation of the prophecy of Zechariah, BEHOLD THY KING will come to thee, the just and savior: he is poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass (Zechariah 9:9).

While it may at first seem (so these scholars claim) that Zechariah refers to two separate animals, the prophet is in fact simply making use of a popular Hebrew literary device according to which a line is repeated in order to emphasize, rather than to duplicate, the meaning. It would seem then that poor St. Matthew was not so keen as Sts. Mark and Luke, who mention only one animal. “Why,” these wise men say, “imagine the sight of Jesus riding into Jerusalem stretched out across two donkeys!”

If, however, one were to approach the text with a spirit of humility and reverence, and with the help of the Catholic commentatorial tradition, much meaning could be mined from St. Matthew’s apparently odd formulation…

Do read on here.

Palm Sunday

FIRST READING: Is 50:4-7
PSALM: Ps 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24
SECOND READING: Phil 2:6-11
GOSPEL: Mt 26:14—27:66 or 27:11-54