Reflection for Palm Sunday – Let Us Pray
It seems like for some years now that each approach to Palm Sunday and the start of Holy Week has felt like a time out of time. Yes, there is a sense of sacred, a feel of holy, a ‘set-apartness’ to the journey, but always heavily influenced by whatever has been happening in my life and the lives of those around me.
The heavy tinge of sadness last year which proceeded into Easter with a much loved family pet slowly dying on our living room couch.
The flatness and questioning of one year when it all seemed too unbelievable, and what difference did it make anyway?
There have been the ‘good’ years as well. The sense of joy that greeted me on Easter morning as we stood around the first fire ready to witness the lighting of the paschal candle. My first Easter as an ordained priest where in my enthusiasm I lit the Easter morning fire on the church porch – only to discover some minutes later that it had left an indelible stain on the painted concrete (the congregation laughingly forgave me).
This year, 2022, the imminent approach of Holy Week has a surreal feel. A deep sense of longing, yearning and hoping that indeed all will be well. That this will be a time of true renewal, of true repentance, of true delight in the love of the Creator, Companion and Giver of Life.
But first we must walk the way to the cross. And pray like we have never done before, for all of us:
For our nations of the world, for peace. For our endangered earth. For our hungry and homeless. For those of us whose lives are limited by sickness, grief or fear. For those of us who bear the weight of others troubles. For all of us who deny their faith or betray their friends.
