I went to St. Patrick's this morning for a TLM and it was fantastic. We started with the blessing of palms.
The feast commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. According to the Gospels Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem, and the celebrating people there lay down their cloaks in front of him, and also lay down small branches of trees. The people sang part of Psalms 117 (118): 25-28 - "benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini benediximus vobis de domo Domini Deus Dominus et apparuit nobis frequentate sollemnitatem in frondosis usque ad cornua altaris Deus meus es tu et confitebor tibi Deus meus es tu exaltabo te confitemini Domino quoniam bonus quoniam in aeternum misericordia eius"
"Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord. The Lord is God, and he hath shone upon us. Appoint a solemn day, with shady boughs, even to the horn of the altar. Thou art my God, and I will praise thee: thou art my God, and I will exalt thee. I will praise thee, because thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation. O praise ye the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever."
The symbolism of the donkey may refer to the Eastern tradition that it is an animal of peace, versus the horse, which is the animal used in war. Therefore, a king came riding upon a horse when he was in war and rode upon a donkey when he wanted to point out that he was coming in peace. Therefore Jesus' entry to Jerusalem symbolized his entry as the Prince of Peace, not as a war waging king and serves as a symbol of the great peace he exemplified throughout his dolorious passion.
These palms that Father blessed are sacramentals and we processed around the Church, commemorating the great procession into Jerusalem by Christ himself, only to be quickly turned over to the Jews and crucified.
There are numerous Old Testaments references in the Entry into Jerusalem:
Matthew 21:1-11 refers to a passage from Book of Zechariah 9:9 and states:
"All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, 'Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion, shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem: BEHOLD THY KING will come to thee, the just and saviour: he is poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass.'"
The location of the Mount of Olives is significant in the Old Testament in that Zechariah 9:9 and Zechariah 14:1-5 stated that the Messiah would come to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives:
"And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is over against Jerusalem towards the east: and the mount of Olives shall be divided in the midst thereof to the east, and to the west with a very great opening, and half of the mountain shall be separated to the north, and half thereof to the south."
The triumphal entry and the palm branches, resemble the celebration of Jewish liberation in the 1 Maccabees 13:51 which states:
"And they entered into it the three and twentieth day of the second month, in the year one hundred and seventy-one, with thanksgiving, and branches of palm trees, and harps, and cymbals, and psalteries, and hymns, and canticles, because the great enemy was destroyed out of Israel."
and finally, Jesus' entry on a donkey has a parallel in Zechariah 9:9 which states that:
"he is poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass."
The priest leads the procession wearing a red cope:
yeah...we always need a good pic of the Pope:
So yes, the priest wears a red cope for the procession, commemorating all of these nice things. Then, he vests into a purple chausible. And for the rest of Mass, he wears purple. The Gospel reading it the Passion Narrative (from Matt) and we, for Mass itself (outside the blessings of palms and the procession), are still in Passiontide and Lent. Our statues and Crucifixes are still veiled and we draw ever closer to Good Friday (and eventually, the glorious Easter Celebration).
As Father Z describes it, We lose things during Lent. We are being pruned through the liturgy. Holy Church experiences liturgical death before the feast of the Resurrection.
The Alleluia goes on Septuagesima. Music and flowers go on Ash Wednesday. Last wee, statues and images are draped in purple.
Also, as part of the pruning, as of today in the older form of Mass, the “Iudica” psalm in prayers at the foot of the altar and the Gloria Patri at the end of certain prayers are no longer said.
The pruning cuts more deeply as we march into the Triduum.
After the Mass on Holy Thursday the Blessed Sacrament is removed from the main altar, which itself is stripped and bells are replaced with wooden noise makers.
On Good Friday there isn’t even a Mass.
At the beginning of the Vigil we are deprived of light itself!
It is as if the Church herself were completely dead with the Lord in His tomb.
This liturgical death of the Church reveals how Christ emptied Himself of His glory in order to save us from our sins and to teach us who we are.
Thus, though we commemorate the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem, we are drawing ever closer to the tomb of Christ on Good Friday
A week ago, we heard and meditated on Christ the Eternal High Priest (yes this is redundant) who never dies. Today, we hear and meditate on Christ the Eternal Sacrifice who offers himself up, on behalf of us sinful humans, on the Wood of the Cross. Thus, we are reminded by the purple of Lent to stay true to Our Lenten Sacrifices and penances and to take Holy Week very seriously. As Father Gabet, FSSP, said today in his short sermon (after chanting the WHOLE PASSION BY HIMSELF, JUMPING TO DIFFERENT OCTAVES FOR DIFFERENT CHARACTERS) now is the time to prepare for the Feast of Easter, by fasting. Even if you have had a difficult Lent, even if you have done nothing, now is as good a time as ever to start.
HAVE A VERY BLESSED HOLY WEEK AND A VERY HOLY TRIDUUM!!!
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