Palms and a Donkey!

I must confess I was distracted by a collection of countries when I started preparing my homily. Jesus’ march towards JRS and singing Hosanna are all look like a July 4^th celebration. It is a kind of independent day for many reasons! So, I started to analyze the various national anthems around the globe. To my surprise I found most of them are outdated. In our digital age, our national anthems are songs of soldiers still; war and victory such as: Scotland sings about Edward’s army, Italy sings about being ready to die, looking for victory, UK is still sending victories to the Queen, scattering their enemies, confusing their politics! Ireland claims that they are a fighting race and face their foes. Many countries bring forth the aspect of unity and freedom.

Here we see Jesus marching into JRS and the palms bring out the sense of victory in Jesus. Palms stand for victory. They want victory for Jesus; they want Jesus win the war! Little they know what he is waging against! Little we know that the palms and donkey are so closely connected. It’s a pity it cannot be called a Holy Donkey Sunday! Certainly that would be a better name compared to Halloween!!! We are so much preoccupied with the palms every Palm Sunday as it is popularly known as! But the objective behind the palms is the importance of the Donkey!

All those national anthems certainly validate the strong muscle power of the stallion horses. Marching for our motherland without a horse is unthinkable so much so that the image horse is so associated to War and bloodshed. So contrasting is the effect that the image Donkey is traditionally seen in the eastern concept as the image of peace and humility! Those palms were actually for peace! That royal anthem of our Lord is for peace!

Think of all those time we carried guns, bullets, swords in our hands and even our tongues at times – so sharp we are! Proudly riding on our horses – our comfort zones, our powers and our investments! This is about time our hands hold fast to the palms that are oriented toward the donkey! What is my personal anthem? Something more than being free and brave needed here. Are you free to love? Brave to sacrifice? I am marching towards toward JRS with palms and donkey with Jesus. Are you coming in or going out?