Who would have thought that we would be celebrating the biggest days of our churches year at home? For many of us this will be difficult but I hope to provide you with tools that you can use to celebrate these holy days at home with your family. This post will talk about celebrating Palm Sunday at home and during the upcoming week I will upload more tools for you to celebrate Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. May this week be one of great joy wherever you may be and I look forward to the day when we can welcome you back at Annunciation!
with my prayers for you,
Rámond
In Preparation for Holy Week
Create a prayer area at home: this can be as simple as a rug or a small table with a family bible. Add your favourite religious images and the cross you will venerate as a family on Good Friday. You may also want to bring out candles.Your prayer area can be the place where you pray during Holy week. It can even be the place where you participate in virtual liturgies.
FOR PALM SUNDAY
Attach a palm branch or another green branch to you door: though we are social distancing from one another, we are looking for signs to that unite us and affirm we are one as a community.
SCRIPTURE READING
When Jesus and the disciples drew near Jerusalem
and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives,
Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them,
“Go into the village opposite you,
and immediately you will find an ass tethered,
and a colt with her.
Untie them and bring them here to me.
And if anyone should say anything to you, reply,
‘The master has need of them.’
Then he will send them at once.”
This happened so that what had been spoken through the prophet
might be fulfilled:
Say to daughter Zion,
“Behold, your king comes to you,
meek and riding on an ass,
and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.”
The disciples went and did as Jesus had ordered them.
They brought the ass and the colt and laid their cloaks over them,
and he sat upon them.
The very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road,
while others cut branches from the trees
and strewed them on the road.
The crowds preceding him and those following
kept crying out and saying:
“Hosanna to the Son of David;
blessed is the he who comes in the name of the Lord;
hosanna in the highest.”
And when he entered Jerusalem
the whole city was shaken and asked, “Who is this?”
And the crowds replied,
“This is Jesus the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee.”
ONE MINUTE REFLECTION ON THE PASSION ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
PRAYER
Dear Jesus, we thank you! You did not enter your holy city Jerusalem on the back of a war horse, but humbly and on a donkey. You knew that you were surrounded by enemies, yet you came in peace. We pray today that your love may truly come’ so that your people can live in peace. Watch over us this Holy Week and draw us nearer to yourself in faith, hope and love.
AMEN