Sunday, April 5, 2009 - Palm Sunday

Good morning on this first day of Holy Week. My vow is to remain stress-free. You know, it isn't the liturgies themselves that stress me out. It's remembering all of the details that go into Holy Week such as remembering to change the colors on the cloths, that last rehearsals for Easter, making sure the robes are ready for the choir, making the worship aides, getting the Vigil candles ready - it's not the doing, it's the remembering and keeping track. Our key person on the Liturgy Team is having some health issues and is in a lot of pain so we are commiserating with her, but at the same time, scrambling to cover everything that she does. But in the midst of all of this, we need to remember why we are doing it. The best and most perfectly planned of liturgies will fall flat if we are so stressed that we forget to enter into the prayer.
*************************************

Word of the day:
Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion - At the Procession with Palms
Reading 1
Mk 11:1-10

When Jesus and his disciples drew near to Jerusalem,
to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives,
he sent two of his disciples and said to them,
"Go into the village opposite you,
and immediately on entering it,
you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat.
Untie it and bring it here.
If anyone should say to you,
'Why are you doing this?' reply,
'The Master has need of it
and will send it back here at once.'"
So they went off
and found a colt tethered at a gate outside on the street,
and they untied it.
Some of the bystanders said to them,
"What are you doing, untying the colt?"
They answered them just as Jesus had told them to,
and they permitted them to do it.
So they brought the colt to Jesus
and put their cloaks over it.
And he sat on it.
Many people spread their cloaks on the road,
and others spread leafy branches
that they had cut from the fields.
Those preceding him as well as those following kept crying out:
"Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come!
Hosanna in the highest!"


God bless our troops!