We attend the 8:30 a.m. at St. Matt’s, avoiding our usual 10:00 a.m. It’s not going to be the usual Latin anyway; rather, it’s the Archbishop, in English. So 8:30’s fine.<\/p>\n
The processional antiphon is Richard Proulx, as we’ve had all through Lent. Ah, but not Psalm 130. Today it’s Hosanna to the Son of David<\/em>, chant, mode VII, choral setting, no less. The procession makes it’s way to the back of the nave, rather than forward to the sanctuary. This is per usual on Palm Sunday. We’ve got palms to bless and then a gospel reading first. From St. Matthew:<\/p>\n Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, and<\/p>\n This happened so that what had been spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled: This confuses me every year. What’s the deal with riding on both <\/em>animals at once?<\/p>\n In these things in the New Testament, when they say that such-and-such happened so that some particular thing might be fulfilled, the particular thing necessarily comes from the Old Testament. And here St. Matthew even tells us that it’s from one of the prophets. I assume immediately that it’s our man Isaiah. It’s always Isaiah, isn’t it?<\/p>\n Turns out I’m only half right. It’s a mixing of two passages, one from Isaiah, t’other from Zechariah. Isaiah’s just the “Say to daughter Zion” part. Zechariah’s the one with the livestock. Zechariah 9:9b says:<\/p>\n See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, Meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Goodness. It’s an ass, a colt, and a foal. Now there’s three animals!<\/p>\n Turns out I’m not the only one confused. Notice how Zechariah doesn’t ever use the word and<\/em>. Apparently St. Matthew was himself somewhat confused. The annotation to the USCCB’s NAB says that the ass and the colt are the same animal, mentioned twice in a rather standard method of Hebrew parallelism. They go on to say that St. Matthew’s confusion leads scholars to believe that he was a Gentile rather than an originally Jewish Christian, mistaking the parallelism for two different animals.<\/p>\n The St. Matthew gospel reading ends with Jesus riding so provocatively into Jerusalem:<\/p>\n The crowds preceding him and those following Hence the Proulx antiphon this morning. I love things like that. And we get to wave palms as well. Palm Sunday always starts out as a hooting good time.<\/p>\n But, of course, things turn deadly serious later. The gospel reading for the mass proper is again from St. Matthew, all but the first fourteen verses of chapter 26, followed by chapter 27 in full. It’s a solid twenty-five minutes. Two-thousand, six-hundred and seventy-nine words. The heart of the matter:<\/p>\n From noon onward, darkness came over the whole land Welcome to Holy Week, people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We attend the 8:30 a.m. at St. Matt’s, avoiding our usual 10:00 a.m. It’s not going to be the usual Latin anyway; rather, it’s the Archbishop, in English. So 8:30’s fine. The processional antiphon is Richard Proulx, as we’ve had all through Lent. Ah, but not Psalm 130. Today it’s Hosanna to the Son of … Continue reading Palm Sunday of the Lord\u2019s Passion<\/span>
\n“Go into the village opposite you,
\nand immediately you will find an ass tethered,
\nand a colt with her.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nSay to daughter Zion,
\n“Behold, your king comes to you,
\nmeek and riding on an ass,
\nand on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nkept crying out and saying:
\n\u201cHosanna to the Son of David;
\nblessed is the he who comes in the name of the Lord;
\nhosanna in the highest.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nuntil three in the afternoon.
\nAnd about three o\u2019clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice,
\n\u201cEli, Eli, lema sabachthani?\u201d<\/em>
\nwhich means, \u201cMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me?\u201d
\nSome of the bystanders who heard it said,
\n\u201cThis one is calling for Elijah.\u201d
\nImmediately one of them ran to get a sponge;
\nhe soaked it in wine, and putting it on a reed,
\ngave it to him to drink.
\nBut the rest said,
\n\u201cWait, let us see if Elijah comes to save him.\u201d
\nBut Jesus cried out again in a loud voice,
\nand gave up his spirit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n