Pause for Prayer: PALM SUNDAY

Image source

 

Our worship on Palm Sunday begins with blessing and waving palm branches and singing Hosanna! Even here, on the first day of Holy Week, there's room for joy in Lent!  But moments later the mood of our prayer changes with the day's readings, culminating in the gospel of the passion (the suffering and death) of Jesus.  Today's scripture tells the story.

 

Holy Week begins today, Lord...

 

In some ways, it will be an ordinary week:

    I'll still have my regular work and duties.

    I'll still need to care for my family and friends.

    I'll still have to do the laundry and take out the trash. 

    I'll still have shopping to do and bills to pay.

    I'll still have to deal with life's everyday problems

       whose responsibilities won't diminish or take a break...

And I'll do all this in a world that will largely ignore
    all we celebrate on these holy days:
        Palm Sunday
            Holy Thursday
                Good Friday
                    Holy Saturday
                        Easter!

So I ask you to help me, Lord,
    to make and keep this week holy...

I hope and pray this week will be peaceful -
    in spite of all I have to do...

I hope and pray these days will be prayerful:
    that I'll make time to spend with you alone
       and time to pray with the church on these holy days...

I hope and pray that in my mind and heart
    these days will be different from any others,
       in how I see and experience the world around me,
       in how I plan and spend my time...

Help me know and live this week of special days,

    these solemn, sober, grace filled, joyful days:

       a time to grow in faith, and hope and love,

       a time to grow in my relationship with you...

 

More than all the weeks and all the days

   of the rest of the year, Lord,

may the days of this week be truly prayerful

   and, to your glory, truly holy...

Amen. 

Let's pause for prayer on this Palm Sunday with Rory Cooney's Palm Sunday Processional, a piece I used for years in my parish in Concord and which brings us to the streets of Jerusalem as Jesus entered his city.  

If a video doesn't appear below, click here! 

 

When they heard that Jesus was coming.

    Sing Hosanna to the Chosen One! 

 

All the people went out to meet him.

    Sing Hosanna to the Chosen One!

 

Spread their cloaks and branches before him.

Children sang with palm branches waving.

 

Blest is he like David before him.

Blest is he, God's blessing upon him.

 

Guiding cloud and pillar of fire.

Satan's foe and friend of the sinner.

 

Word of God and firstborn of people.

Promise kept and crown of creation.

 

Vision blest and hope for the future.

God's beloved and radiant with glory.

 

Wondrous bread and stream in the desert.

Holy thirst and God's living water.

 

Eye of God who see to the heart of us.

Healing touch, the sight for our blindness.

 

Rising sun, the light of the world.

Word of life who give us your Spirit.

 

Friend in death who weep for our dying.

Freed in death, who roll back the stone for us.

 

Friend in death, who wake us to new life.

Friend in life, we sing glad hosannas.

    

Tweet   

SUBSCRIBE HERE!