Daily Reading for April 5 • The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday
You went into the holy city
with your disciples,
sitting on the colt of a donkey,
as though borne upon the cherubim,
so fulfilling what the prophets proclaimed.
The children of the Hebrews,
with palms and branches,
came to meet you.
So do we carry branches of olive and palms,
and cry out our thanks:
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is the one who comes
in the name of the Lord!
Carrying spiritual branches,
and with souls made clean,
let us joyfully cry out
with faith to Christ,
like the children,
loudly praising the Lord:
Blessed are you, Savior!
You have come into the world
to save Adam from the primal curse.
Loving humankind, you were well pleased
to become spiritually the new Adam.
Glory to you, O Word, for you have done all things for good.
From palms and branches,
from one divine feast to another,
let us make haste, we who believe,
to reverence Christ’s passion,
that mystery of salvation.
From ancient Orthodox hymns for Matins and Vespers on Palm Sunday, quoted in Orthodox Lent, Holy Week and Easter: Liturgical Texts with Commentary by Hugh Wybrew (London: SPCK, 1995).