Shared in the diocesan e-newsletter, Thursday 26 March

This Sunday we begin Holy Week with the celebration of Palm Sunday. The celebration opens by commemorating Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem and swiftly moves to recounting the Passion. As we celebrate Holy Mass, we will notice a sharp change: from ‘Hosanna to the King’ to ‘Crucify him.’  This dramatic shift is captured in Samuel Crossman’s hymn, My Song is Love Unknown and beautifully set to music by John Ireland.
 
In the third verse we sing: ‘and His sweet praises sing; resounding all the day hosannas to the King.’  Then, immediately, in the same verse, ‘Then ‘Crucify!’ is all their breath and for His death they thirst and cry.’ Singing this hymn invites us to reflect on how quickly the mood of the crowd can change. Yet, in a more searching way, the same movement from praise to rejection can be found in our own attitude towards the Lord. In one moment, we praise and thank him for all the blessings we have received; in another we turn to frustration or anger when he seems to be silent and our prayers appear unanswered.
 
Like the crowds in the Gospel, we too sing a song of ‘love unknown.’ We can struggle to comprehend the depth of God’s love for us and recognise that love revealed in the Passion and Death of Jesus. Palm Sunday sets the scene and invites us to move from love unknown to a love personally known. It calls us, in the words of the hymn to say, ‘This is my friend, in Whose sweet praise I all my days could gladly spend.’

Fr Michael Glover
St Mary's College, Oscott

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