A brief meditation on Palm Sunday, 2026
A brief meditation on Palm Sunday.
Fr J. Egbulefu CCE, Ohuru 2026
Brothers and sisters in Christ the King ! We have joyfully gathered today, this Sunday, this day of the Lord, called Palm Sunday, to commemorate the event of the triumphant entry of Jesus Christ Our Lord as King, a saving Ruler seated on a Throne, into the city of Jerusalem shortly before His was killed by being crucified, nailed to the Cross and breathed His last from the Cross. And while commemorating that event of His triumphant entry into Jerusalem we participate actively in the acts and actions of those His followers that were in solidarity with Him and we re-live the religious sentiments of these persons who earlier than ourselves followed Him from close range.
For: in that event a crowd that recognized Him as the promised Messiah, ‘the Godsent Redeemer of His people as the people of God, Israel, the Bringer of the Godpromised salvation to the people of God’ - accompanied Him with palms in their hands as symbol of victory and with shouts of joy along the road as He entered the city - seated on a colt (an ass as an animal that symbolzes the childishness and foolishness and ignorance-based evil doings of humans), like His Mother, a Queen, a saving Ruler without a throne , but with a crown, will subjugate the serpent under her feet.
As they were moving along with Him they shouted to Him with joyful acclamation, singing to Him a Song with which they hailed Him as their King (their ruling Saviour on seat, seated on a throne). They were not shouting at Him with reprimand or rebuke or reproach, denouncing Him as the politically manipulated crowd assembled in the square would soon do, calling for His crucifixion: ‘crucify Him, crucify Him, we don’t want another King outside Ceasar! or Herod !).
Rather their joyful shout was: ‘Hosanna, which comes from the Hebrew “hoshi’a na”, literally meaning “Please help us”, thus a request, a prayer, hence a cry for help in the sight of an imminent or a present danger, an appeal to God for deliverance from all encountered dangers : the danger to life or to health or to collective survival: survival of the family, or of the ethicity or of the community or of the society of of the people or of the nation or of the kingdom.
They were singing joyfully because for he who sings, prays twice. And their joyful song was : “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest” (Mt 21:9).
This second part of their Song has since become the third part of the Church’s traditional hymn sung at the Holy Mass as Eucharistic devotion. ‘Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of power and might Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the Highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest”.
In the Gregorian chant in ‘Liber usualis’ the one who is coming in the name of the Lord is explicitly called the King of Israel (Rex Israel). “Hosanna Filio David: benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Rex Israel : Hosanna in excelsis”.
Among the crowd accompanying Him as He, riding on the colt was entering into the city of Jerusalem were Hebrew Children, boys and girls, carrying branches of the olive tree, some going in front of Him, some others side on His left and right side, while the elderly people followed behind Him on the road along which the Lord whom they were accompanying was moving. And as the crowd moved on with Him especially the children were shouting and saying: “Hosanna in the highest”, while with the olive branches in their hands they were expressing symbolically the truth that the Lord Jesus is a humble, peaceful King, who, in obedience to His Father’s Will, will achieve His victory by the Cross, not by sword and might that have been removed and replaced
and represented by the vertical axis and the horizontal axis respectively of the Cross.
That Jesus the Nazarene is the King of the Jews is written in the three languages ‘Hebrew, Greek and Latin’ at the upper end of the vertical axis of the Holy Cross on which the holy sacrifice is accomplished on Mount Calvary by Christ by which He has redeemed the world, that holy Sacrifice on the Cross the prolongation of which is the Holy Mass as Sacrifice on the Altar, wherefore the three most original languages for celebrating the Holy Mass as Sacrifice are Hebrew, Greek and Latin that are till today the official languages of the liturgies of the one holy Church of Christ in Israel, in the Greek world and in Rome respectively.