On the eve of Palm Sunday, Saturday 12 April, the Franciscan friars of the Custody of the Holy Land celebrated the sixth and last peregrination of Lent. The celebration was held at the Shrine of Bethphage, which stands on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, on the old road which led to Bethany. The meeting between Jesus and Martha and Mary, before resuscitating Lazarus, is commemorated here. It was in the same place, according to the Gospels, that the disciples sent by Christ found the donkey used to enter Jerusalem.

Jesus is not a political King

In his homily, Fra Ulise Zurza emphasized some aspects of the scriptures in reference to Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, the start of his Passion, death and Resurrection.
He underlined the aspect of Jesus' humility, entering Jerusalem on a donkey and turning upside-down the idea of a powerful King; this was an idea far from the collective imagination both then and today.

“The Old Testament appears in every action by Jesus: the Messiah king enters the holy city in all humility. He is not a king in the style of the zealots. He is not a political king. In this scene, Jesus defines himself as Kyrios (κύριος) when he tells the disciples to answer: “The Lord needs them”; this title will be clear to the disciples only after Easter, when he will appear as the Lord of life who defeats death.”

Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord

Fra Ulise continued his homily by stressing the meaning of Jesus who reveals Himself as King, but a king who has come to serve and not to be served.

“He who comes down from the Mount of Olives is not a simple man who claims a temporal kingdom, but is the Lord, the Son of God, king and the Messiah who brings freedom to his people; all the prophecies of the Old Testament are fulfilled by him and all the promises made by the Patriarchs are manifested in him: God the eternal became humble and introduces himself as the Servant King. Therefore we learn in the Scriptures to get to know who Christ the Lord really is.”

The manifestation of the Old and the New Testaments

At the end of his homily, Fra Ulise recalled that Jesus is the fulfillment of the scriptures, the union between the Old and the New Testaments.

“The Fathers of the Church, reading this passage, in particular the procession that accompanied Jesus in his entry into Jerusalem, see the manifestation of the Old and the New Testaments and in Jesus he who fulfils all the promises of God. The Old and the New Testaments, represented by the prophets and the Apostles,  unite their voices to praise Christ the Lord, show him and proclaim him Lord: He is the fulfillment of all the Scriptures , he is the Messiah king, the Son of God incarnate; all praise and glory to him forever and ever, Amen!”