Canon Michael's reflection for Passion Sunday
Palm Sunday 2020 is like no other Palm Sunday we have celebrated. We all have to use our imaginations and accompany Jesus in his rapturous welcome into Jerusalem in the comfort of our homes or back gardens, keeping all the social distancing we are required to do.
How unlike that first Palm Sunday, and how unlike when I was in Jerusalem for Palm Sunday 2011. Thousands of us gathered together at Bethphage, all carrying enormous Palm branches. We then processed down the Mount of Olives and crammed through the Lions gate into the walled Holy City. We then entered St Anne's church site, now belonging to the Missionaries to Africa (White fathers). We were then blessed by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michael Sabbah. It is a very happy memory.
May the memory of that first Palm Sunday, and our own reading of the Passion Gospel of St Matthew, help us to pray for so many people throughout the world carrying their own crosses of bereavement, fear and suffering in this cruel pandemic. May we all look forward with hope for an end to this horror and the joy of being fully social and alive again.
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