Holy Week Has Begun

Gregorian chant:

Gloria, laus et honor tibi sit, Rex Christe Redemptor: Cui puerile decus prompsit Hosanna pium.

Israel es tu Rex, Davidis et inclyta proles: Nomine qui in Domini, Rex benedicte, venis.

Plebs Hebraea tibi cum palmis obvia venit: Cum prece, voto, hymnis, adsumus ecce tibi.

Glory, praise and honor to Thee, O King Christ, the Redeemer: to whom children poured their glad and sweet hosanna’s song.

Hail, King of Israel! David’s Son of royal fame! Who comes in the Name of the Lord, O Blessed King.

With palms the Jews went forth to meet Thee. We greet Thee now with prayers and hymns.

And Chesterton's "The Donkey":

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

Hosanna to the Son of David! The King of Glory comes!

Jesus and Donkeys

We know that Jesus rode on a donkey for His triumphant entry into Jerusalem from the Gospels  to fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah: “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Giotto includes the entry in his frescoes of the life of Christ in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. (Look at the little smile on the donkey's face.)

There is also a tradition that Mary, carrying Jesus in her womb, rode on a donkey from Nazareth to Bethlehem--it is usually accepted that she would have ridden on a donkey on the way to Egypt after the murder of the Innocent baby boys by Herod. The Holy Family was not rich, so a donkey to carry the pregnant Mary and to carry Mary and the child Jesus is a reasonable assumption, but it's certainly not in scripture. Giotto pictures the donkey carrying Mary and Jesus to Egypt in same life cycle:

There is a lovely picture book titled The Donkey's Dream, which depicts the donkey carrying Mary to Bethlehem dreaming of what he is carrying: a city, a ship, a fountain, a rose, then a “lady full of heaven”, all images of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

So the humble work animal, the ass, might have carried Jesus to His birth in Bethlehem's stable, into Egypt (and perhaps back?) and certainly to His Passion, Death, and Resurrection in Jerusalem.

The seer Malle in H.F.M. Prescott's great chronicle of the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the Pilgrimage of Grace The Man on a Donkey sees Jesus come riding on a donkey over the bridge to Grinton. Her only message is "There was a great wind of light blowing, and sore pain." That echoes Mary's message to King Alfred the Great in Chesterton's epic poem The Ballad of the White Horse:

"I tell you naught for your comfort, 

 Yea, naught for your desire, 

 Save that the sky grows darker yet 

 And the sea rises higher. 

 "Night shall be thrice night over you, 

 And heaven an iron cope. 

 Do you have joy without a cause, 

 Yea, faith without a hope?"

Mentioning Chesterton brings me to his great poem on the donkey who carried Jesus into Jerusalem. Like the donkey dreaming in the children's book I linked above, Chesterton's donkey knows something great has happened:

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

Hosanna to the Son of David! The King of Glory comes!

Palm Sunday in England before the Reformation

The Catholic Church in England before the Reformation used some adaptations of the Latin or Roman Rite called the Sarum Use. These adaptations had developed at Salisbury Cathedral and took their name from the Latin for Salisbury. During Holy Week, these Sarum Use adaptations of the ritual demonstrated the great devotion of the English people to the Eucharist and the Passion of Our Lord. Eamon Duffy’s great work, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580 offers us many details of these rituals.

At the beginning of Holy Week, Palm Sunday was celebrated with a procession from the parish church. As Duffy notes, these processions were one of the most elaborate rituals of the Sarum Use, focused on the Blessed Sacrament and the incarnational celebration of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. Instead of a figure representing Jesus riding on a donkey, the Blessed Sacrament was carried in procession to the parish church. The Christians celebrating that day knew that Jesus was present in the Holy Eucharist, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity--that He was really there with them as they walked in procession with palms (willow branches) and kissed the ground before Him.

The choirs sang "Gloria, Laus et Honor" (All Glory, Laud and Honor) by Theodulph of Orleans and after the procession entered the church, the dramatic reading of the St. Matthew's Passion captured the congregation's attention. Duffy notes it was sometimes read from the Rood Loft next to the Crucifixion scene in front and above the Altar, with alternating voices of the Narrator, Jesus, and the other Speakers. The holiest week of the year had begun and the parishioners were prepared to celebrate the Holy Triduum and receive Holy Communion on Easter Sunday.

During the celebration of Palm Sunday, I always think of G.K. Chesterton's poem, "The Donkey":

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.