Jesus enters the opening of Palm Sunday to shouts from a crowd:
"Hosanna in the highest."
Hosanna is a transliteration of the Hebrew word “hosi-ah-na,” which means to save or rescue, or designates the person who saves or rescues. The cry of the crowd echoes through the centuries—through dusty roads, waving branches, and longing hearts. It comes down to us each week during mass.
It has always seemed unfortunate to me that a man grieving the brutal death of a friend has, for centuries, been remembered chiefly as a “doubter.”
We forget that when Jesus announced he was returning to Jerusalem—where danger surely awaited—it was Thomas alone who urged the others,
“Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (John 11:16)
That is not doubt.
That is courage.
The Ninth Station of the Cross
Jesus Falls for the Third Time
It seems we keep falling.
We long to be known and loved as we are, yet we fall into hiding,
placing masks over our true faces.
We yearn for community, yet we fall into division.
We say we seek peace, yet find ourselves at war.
Like Jesus, we sometimes feel the heavy weight of the crosses we carry.
We keep falling.
The Eighth Station of the Cross
Jesus Meets The Women of Jerusalem
Today we share another visual, another stunning representation from Ted DeGrazia’s collection The Way of the Cross. Spend some time with the image. What draws you? What would you like to say to Jesus?
Henry Nouwen’s You Are The Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living shares this meditation today:
Seventh Station of the Cross
Jesus Falls for the Second Time
I’d like to share a personal story.
In my mid-twenties I encountered anxiety. At the beginning of the second year of my graduate program, I was completely crippled. My mom jumped on the next flight to Chicago, and with her guidance, we quickly found professional help in the form of a therapist who worked with me to understand my mind, understand anxiety, and make sense of things.
The Irish poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama (Irish as in from Ireland - not the Fighting Football kind :) ) has mountains of remarkable writings.
Today I’m glad to share his reflection on Jesus comforting his disciples. It appears in Ó Tuama’s Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community, Day 26:
There are moments in Mass each week where our minds can wander off. One of those for me is the Prayers of the Faithful. Look at how the General Instruction of the Roman Missal talks about these intentions we pray after we say the Creed:
“In the Universal Prayer or Prayer of the Faithful, the people respond in some sense to the Word of God which they have received in faith and, exercising the office of their baptismal Priesthood, offer prayers to God for the salvation of all.”
I have a tendency to want to control things in my life – the big, the small, the in between…just so long as everything goes according to my plan! So when uncertainty comes and I can’t see the road ahead, I’m naturally anxious and have a tendency to close myself off or shut down. Can anyone relate?
It’s in times like these that I go back to one of my very favorite prayers: The Prayer of Patient Trust by Jesuit priest Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ.
The Sixth Station of the Cross
Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus
The word compassion comes from Latin, literally meaning to “suffer with.”
In this scene, that is exactly what Veronica does – she suffers with Jesus. But Veronica is suffering too. In return, Jesus, even on His way to Calvary, suffers alongside her as she mourns.
