The Liturgy of Palm Sunday
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The Liturgy of Palm Sunday Palm Sunday 28 March 2021 9.00am Welcome to Southwark Cathedral Set on the south bank of the River Thames in one of the most vibrant and diverse communities in London, this building has been a constant witness in a place of change. The first church was built on this site around the year 606. First a convent, then a monastery, it became in 1106 the Augustinian Priory of St Mary Overie. With Westminster Abbey and St Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield it is one of the three remaining great monastic churches of London. At the Reformation the Priory became a parish church and it remains so for the people of Bankside. In 1905, as south London was rapidly expanding, the church was consecrated as the cathedral for the new Diocese of Southwark. As well as a place of constant witness to our faith in Jesus Christ, this church has a momentous and proud history and has had links with many famous and influential characters including St Thomas Becket, Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. In the 20th century this cathedral was at the heart of the new movement in theology termed ‘South Bank Religion’. This movement asked challenging questions of people about faith in the modern age which continue to be explored at Southwark Cathedral which describes itself as ‘inclusive: faithful: radical’. Whatever has brought you here today, you are most welcome.Become part of the life here if you can; it will change your life as you encounter with us our living God. PLEASE BELIEVE THESE DAYS WILL PASS by Mark Titchner, 2006 nominee for the Turner Prize, is our selected work to mark the season of Lent this year. A glimpse of it can be seen on the front cover of this order of service. Regrettably, due to the national lockdown it will not be on public display before the summer. Please visit us between 2 June and 22 July to see the Lent Art Installation in place in the Cathedral. Every pilgrim to the Holy Land will have experienced the sheer thrill of beginning the descent from the Mount of Olives into the valley that lies before the Temple Mount. The sight is one of the most spectacular, but it is also spiritually profound. The pilgrims realise that they are walking in a very real way in the footsteps of Christ. The liturgies of Holy Week are the oldest that we have in the church. Our knowledge of what the early Christians did comes from many sources but principally from the journal kept by a pilgrim. In the 4th century a Spanish nun, Egeria, made the journey to the Holy Land. Like many pilgrims she recorded what she experienced and felt whilst she was living alongside the Christian community there. Some centuries later the Crusaders came back from their campaigns in the Middle East with similar tales of what they had found. Like Egeria they encouraged people back at home to walk the way of the cross in their own towns and villages. They built churches to remind them of the places in Jerusalem, the holy sites, that they had seen – places like the Temple Church in the City of London. They helped to develop popular devotions like the Stations of the Cross, a means by which ordinary people could make a spiritual journey to Jerusalem and walk with Jesus and the characters in the passion accounts, the Via Dolorosa. Over the centuries the shape of Holy Week has become established in the Western tradition. 4 It is a pilgrimage week for each one of us as we enter into the events that would take Jesus from the Mount of Olives to the Hill of Calvary and the tomb in the garden. Our pilgrimage begins with the Liturgy of Palm Sunday. Egeria noted that on this Sunday the Christian community met on the Mount of Olives to remember, by re-enactment, the triumphal entry of the Lord into Jerusalem. This became the practice in Rome by the 11th century and was practised throughout Europe by the later Middle Ages. The blessing of the palms (or pussy willow or yew where palm was not indigenous) became a defining act of the Eucharist as did the Proclamation of the Passion at the end of the procession to the place where the Eucharist would be celebrated. As the coronavirus pandemic continues, our keeping of Palm Sunday will be different. In particular, the restrictions and guidelines currently in place mean that Palm Sunday processions will not be able to happen this year, and the Passion Gospel will be read in a slightly different way from usual. However, we invite you to begin your journey with Jesus to the cross today with our brother and sister Christians throughout the world, and so be renewed by the promise and assurance of God’s love in Christ, which we encounter most powerfully in this holiest of weeks. 5 Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 6 Commemoration of the Lord’s Entry into Jerusalem All stand as the President enters. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. All Amen. The Lord be with you. All and also with you. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, during Lent we have been preparing by works of love and self-sacrifice for the celebration of our Lord’s death and resurrection. Today we come together to begin this solemn celebration in union with the Church throughout the world. Christ enters his own city to complete his work as our Saviour, to suffer, to die, and to rise again. Let us go with him in faith and love, so that, united with him in his sufferings, we may share his risen life. 7 The people hold up their palms while the following prayer is said God our Saviour, whose Son Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem as Messiah to suffer and to die; let these palms be for us signs of his victory and grant that we who bear them in his name may ever hail him as our King, and follow him in the way that leads to eternal life; who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. All Amen. The Palm Gospel Mark 11. 1–11 Hear the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to Mark. All Glory to you, O Lord. When Jesus and his disciples were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” 8 just say this, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.” ’ They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’ They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’ Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. This is the Gospel of the Lord. All Praise to you, O Christ. 9 The Collect Let us pray for a closer union with Christ in his suffering and in his glory. Almighty and everlasting God, who in your tender love towards the human race sent your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ to take upon him our flesh and to suffer death upon the cross: grant that we may follow the example of his patience and humility, and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. All Amen. All sit. 10 The Liturgy of the Word First Reading Isaiah 50. 4–9a Read by Paul Timms, Dean's Verger. A reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. The servant of the Lord said: The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backwards. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; 11 therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near.