Palm Sunday with Frederick Buechener
WHEN JESUS OF Nazareth rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and his followers cried out, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord,” the Pharisees went to Jesus and told him to put an end to their blasphemies, and Jesus said to them, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
This church. The church on the other side of town, the other side of the world. All churches everywhere. The day will come when they will lie in ruins, every last one of them. The day will come when all the voices that were ever raised in them, including our own, will be permanently stilled. But when that day comes, I believe that the tumbled stones will cry aloud of the great, deep hope that down through the centuries has been the one reason for having churches at all and is the one reason we have for coming to this one now: the hope that into the world the King does come. And in the name of the Lord. And is always coming, blessed be he. And will come afire with glory, at the end of time.
In the meantime, King Jesus, we offer all churches to you as you offer them to us. Make thyself known in them. Make thy will done in them. Make our stone hearts cry out thy kingship. Make us holy and human at last that we may do the work of thy love.
• Originally published in A Room Called Remember
The Internet Monk Archives 
It’s not just “the world’s silent cooperation in so many horrible things”.
The Church has also been no slouch in that department, both then and now. Just they make Long Pious Prayers in the process.
Just check out Wartburg Watch, Spiritual Sounding Board, or Wondering Eagle for proof.
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a Palm Sunday poem from Chesterton
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” the hope that into the world the King does come. And in the name of the Lord. And is always coming, blessed be he. And will come afire with glory, at the end of time.”
“And am I born to die?
To lay this body down!
And must my trembling spirit fly
Into a world unknown?
Waked by the trumpet sound,
I from my grave shall rise;
And see the Judge with glory crowned,
And see the flaming skies!”
‘AND SEE THE FLAMING SKIES!’
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He has! Thanks be to God!!
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Thank you. I needed that.
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Ready for resurrection.
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Hosanna!
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in the dark predawn
birds start to sing, as if they know
morning is coming
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Awfully hard to believe, to trust, to hold onto in the grip of suffering, one’s own and others capacity for iniquity and destructiveness, the world’s silent cooperation in so many horrible things, and the feeling of impotent weariness. Most of the time I’m just pretending to believe in that hope, because to stop pretending would be altogether too terrible.
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