Queen of Peace Franciscan Fraternity

05/22/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/14gqnrQC6Dp/

05/13/2026

Worth the read...

  Or on YouTube   There is, as it were, a very significant acceleration in time; there’s an acceleration in time just as there’s an acceleration in speed. And we go faster and faster. We must be very attentive to this to understand what is happening in today’s world… —Fr. Marie-Dominique...

05/06/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1AxL2K98tp/

04/15/2026

www.markmallett.com/blog/searching-for-god/

  or on YouTube   here did God go? It’s a question many of us have asked in serious trials, in spiritual dryness, and in the most difficult temptations. Of course, we know in our intellect that God, who is omnipresent, hasn’t gone anywhere; that He tells us in the Scriptures that He will be [....

04/09/2026

Never a death like this,
and I've lost count...
His struggle wasn't with death.
Death was his servant,
not his master.
That wasn't a defeated man...
On the cross,
his conflict was with something far greater
than bitter-tongued Pharisees.
No, he fought a different battle...
Later he gave a great cry of victory.
They were puzzled.
But I know battles and fighters.
I'd recognize a victor's shout,
anywhere.
- Frank Topping, "An Impossible God," 1985. Written from the perspective of the Centurion present on Calvary.

04/06/2026

Originally posted by Jonathan Ponds
The Shroud of Turin is the worst nightmare of those who don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth existed. At the same time, it can also serve as evidence and a compass to the unbeliever and skeptic.The more it is investigated, the less natural answers people have.

Step back for a second and forget that it is claimed to be Jesus. Just look at it objectively.

It is the image of a real man. Based on the proportions, he is about 5’10 to 6’0 and roughly 170 to 190 pounds. His blood type has been identified as AB. This is not a painting. It is not pigment. It is a full body image with anatomical precision that science still struggles to explain.

Look closer at the injuries.

There are around 50 puncture wounds around his head, consistent with something like a helmet of thorns driven into the scalp.

There is a wound in his side consistent with a spear thrust, matching Roman spearheads used in the first century.

Across his entire body are hundreds of scourge marks on both the front and back, consistent with Roman flagrum whips.

There are nail wounds in the wrists and feet, aligning with archaeological evidence of crucifixion victims.
Now here is something most people do not know.
The blood on the cloth has been analyzed and shows high levels of bilirubin. Bilirubin is a breakdown product of hemoglobin that increases significantly when the body undergoes extreme trauma, shock, and severe physical stress. This is exactly what you would expect from someone who was brutally beaten, scourged, and crucified. It is one of the reasons the blood on the shroud appears unusually bright red instead of darkened, because elevated bilirubin can affect the color.

There is also evidence of real human blood containing hemoglobin, albumin, and serum separation patterns that match actual bleeding wounds, not artistic application.

There is pollen embedded in the cloth that only blooms in Jerusalem in the spring, around April.
There are limestone and dirt deposits on the knees, feet, and nose, suggesting repeated falls forward. This man collapsed under weight, hit the ground face first, and got back up.

One shoulder appears dislocated, with abrasion marks indicating he carried something extremely heavy on one side of his body.

The image itself is not made of paint, dye, or any known pigment. It is a superficial oxidation and dehydration of the topmost linen fibers, only affecting a very thin layer. It also contains 3D information, meaning the intensity of the image correlates to the distance between the body and the cloth. That is something medieval artists had no concept of.
To recreate this kind of image, scientists have experimented with ultraviolet lasers. Their findings suggest that it would require an extremely intense burst of radiation in the ultraviolet spectrum, delivered in an incredibly short time.

Some estimates indicate energy on the order of billions of watts concentrated into a fraction of a second.

To give perspective, a large power plant might generate around 1 billion watts, but it does so continuously across an entire grid. The shroud image would require that level of power focused onto a human-sized surface instantly, not spread out, not sustained, but released in a sudden burst.

Other analyses suggest even higher localized energy densities, potentially requiring pulses of light so intense that modern technology cannot reproduce them at the scale and uniformity seen on the cloth.

The energy appears to have come from within the body outward, not from an external source. The image is a negative, meaning when photographed, it produces a highly detailed positive image. That was discovered in 1898, long before modern imaging technology.

Even more unexplainable, there are no smear marks. If a body had been unwrapped or physically removed, the blood and image should show distortion. They do not. The cloth looks as if the body simply passed through it or disappeared from within it without disturbing the fibers.

Now compare all of this with the Gospel accounts.
Gospel of Matthew describes the crown of thorns pressed onto His head.

Gospel of John records the scourging and the spear in His side

Gospel of Luke records His physical collapse under the weight of the cross

All four Gospels describe the crucifixion
For years, skeptics pointed to medieval carbon dating. But the sample used came from a repaired section after a fire. More recent testing methods like X ray scattering and other advanced analyses have pointed back toward a first century origin.

So now the questions become unavoidable...

Who is this man?

If the body was not unwrapped, where did it go?
How did it leave the cloth without disturbing it?
What caused an intense burst of radiation and light from within the body that modern science still cannot replicate?

From a logical standpoint, if an intelligent creator of the universe exists, then it is not unreasonable that He could enter His own creation, die, and rise again.

And that is exactly what Jesus said.

Gospel of John 10:17–18
“I lay down my life that I may take it up again… I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.”

Gospel of Matthew 20:18–19
“The Son of Man will be delivered… flogged and crucified, and on the third day He will be raised.”

And from a historical standpoint, if someone wanted to fabricate a religion in the first century, having women as the first witnesses would be the worst possible strategy. Yet that is exactly what is recorded.
The disciples went from hiding in fear to boldly proclaiming the resurrection across the world. Many died for it. They could have denied it and lived. They did not.

People may die for what they think is true, but they do not die for what they know is a lie.

So the shroud forces the question... Who is the man???

There is an answer...

Gospel of Mark 8:31

“The Son of Man must suffer many things… be killed, and after three days rise again.”

Gospel of Luke 24:6–7
“He is not here. He has risen.”

If you don't believe it, I challenge you to objectively research The Shroud of Turin. It may just take you on a journey that you didn't expect.

Happy Resurrection Day.

04/05/2026

✝️ The Resurrection Through the Eyes of Virgin Mary (The Co-Redemptrix)

"It is finished." - When those final words left His cracked lips, the earth convulsed. The sky was bruised and black. But my soul remained perfectly still in the center of the storm. The sword Simeon had promised me thirty-three years ago in the temple finally drove itself to the hilt. I felt every echo of His agony in my own flesh. Yet beneath the crushing weight of a mother's grief, a fierce and pristine joy began to take root. The debt was paid. My Son had conquered.

They took Him down from the wood and placed Him in my arms. The Word made flesh was completely silent. I wiped the dirt and the precious blood from His beautiful face. John wept openly. Magdalene trembled in the dirt. But I looked at His lifeless, broken body and adored my God. I knew His divine person had not abandoned this battered flesh. I kissed His thorn-crowned brow and whispered my second fiat.

By nightfall the door of the upper room was locked tight against the outside world. Jerusalem rested for the great Sabbath. Inside our hidden refuge, the air was heavy and thick with despair.

Peter sat in the far corner. He was a hollow shell of a man, crushed entirely by the weight of his triple denial. Thomas paced the floor with dark and angry eyes. Magdalene lay on the floor with her tears soaking the rough wood. They all believed the story was over. Death had claimed their Rabbi.

I sat quietly by the window. I did not weep as they wept. I was the mother of the living, the New Eve who had stood without fainting at the tree of the cross. The faith of the entire Church now resided entirely within my Immaculate Heart. On this dark Saturday, I was the single candle burning in the absolute night.

John approached me. His young face was drawn and exceedingly pale. He laid his head in my lap, just as my Son had done so many years ago in our little house in Nazareth. I stroked his hair gently.

"Mother," John whispered. "How can you bear the silence?"

"Because I know the Author of Life," I told him softly. "A seed must fall into the ground and die to bear much fruit. He told you this, my son. Do not forget His promises."

Magdalene looked up from the floor. Her eyes were red and swollen. "I saw them roll the stone in front of the cave. It is so heavy, Mary. He is locked away in the dark."

I smiled at her. It was a soft smile born of absolute, unshakeable certainty. "He is the Light of the World. The darkness cannot possibly contain Him. Right now He is breaking the ancient iron gates. He is finding Adam. He is finding my beloved Joseph. We only need to wait for the third day."

They listened to my voice, though their grief prevented them from fully understanding. My faith served as a protective shield over their shattered hearts. I sat in the stillness and united my silent suffering to His perfect, bloody sacrifice. This was my appointed role. The Father had asked me to walk every single step to Calvary with Him, offering my Child back to heaven for the salvation of the world.

The long hours of the Sabbath finally passed. The first day of the week approached. The city slept under a blanket of cold stars.

I did not sleep. I knelt on the floor facing the east. My heart began to beat in a strange and beautiful rhythm. I sensed a profound shift in the very fabric of creation. The heavy chill of the room seemed to evaporate. A warm and sweeping wave of grace washed over my soul.

I closed my eyes. In the deepest sanctuary of my spirit, I felt the exact moment the universe changed forever.

The bond between a mother and her child is a profound mystery. But the bond between the Immaculate Mother and the Son of God is eternal and entirely unbreakable. I felt the surge of divine life flood back into His sacred veins. I felt the cold stone of the tomb give way to the brilliant, uncreated light of the Godhead.

I opened my eyes just as the first golden ray of the sun crested the horizon.

Magdalene was already awake in the corner. She was weeping quietly and gathering her jars of spices to anoint a co**se. I did not stop her. I knew she needed to see the empty tomb for herself. Peter and John would need to run and see the folded cloths.

But I did not need to run to the garden. I remained right there in the quiet room. I folded my hands and breathed in the sweet air of the Eighth Day. My tears of sorrow had dried long ago. My quiet vigil was complete.

My Son was alive!

04/03/2026

From EWTN, A Meditation on the Seven Last Words of Christ:
The Seven Last Words of Jesus: Powerful Meditations By Ven. Abp. Fulton Sheen
“It is finished.” (John 19:30)



Caroline Perkins
Caroline Perkins, April 15, 2025 — 7 minutes read – ChurchPOP


Why should we meditate on the final words of Jesus from the cross?



the seven last words of jesusCaroline Perkins, ChurchPOP



As Venerable Fulton J. Sheen explained:

“There was never a preacher like the dying Christ. There was never a congregation like that which gathered about the pulpit of the Cross. There was never a sermon like the Seven Last Words.”

Father Raymond J. de Souza also shared this spiritual practice in the National Catholic Register:

“There is another Good Friday custom, that of the ‘Seven Last Words,’ made most famous in recent times by the Ven. Fulton Sheen, who preached the Seven Last Words every Good Friday for 58 years.”

Below are the last words of Jesus, alongside the corresponding scripture verse and prayer written by Ven. Fulton Sheen himself.



the seven last words of jesusCaroline Perkins, ChurchPOP



1) “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do!” (Lk. 23:34)

Prayer:

Dear Jesus, I do not want to know the wisdom of the world; I do not want to know on whose anvil snowflakes are hammered, or the hiding place of darkness, or from whose womb came the ice, or why the gold falls to the earth, earthly, and fire climbs to the heavens, heavenly; I do not want to know literature and science,nor the four-dimensional universe in which we live; I do not want to know the length of the universe in terms of light years; I do not want to know the breadth of the earth as it dances about the chariot of the sun; I do not want to know the heights of the stars, chaste candles of the night; I do not want to know the depth of the sea, nor the secrets of its watery palace. I want to be ignorant of all these things. I want only to know the length, the breadth, and the height and the depth of Thy redeeming Love on the Cross, Sweet Savior of Men. I want to be ignorant of everything in the world – everything but You, dear Jesus. And then, by the strangest of strange paradoxes, I shall be wise!



2) “This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.” (Lk. 23:43)

Prayer:

Dear Jesus! Your kindness to the penitent thief recalls the prophetic words of the Old Testament, “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be as red as crimson, they shall be white as wool.” In your words of forgiveness to the penitent thief, I understand now the meaning of your words, “I am not come to call the just, but sinners. . . They that are in health need not a physician, but they that are ill.” “There shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance.” I see now why Peter was not made Thy first vicar on earth until after he had fallen three times, in order that the Church of which he was the head might forever understand forgiveness and pardon. Jesus, I begin to see that if I had never sinned, I never could call You “Savior.” The thief is not the only sinner. Here am I! But Thou art the only Savior.



3) “Woman, behold thy Son.” (Jn. 19:26-27)

Prayer:

O, Mary! As Jesus was born to thee in thy first Nativity of the flesh, so we have been born of thee in thy second Nativity of the spirit. Thus thou didst beget us into a new world of spiritual relationship with God as our Father, Jesus as our Brother, and thou as our Mother! If a Mother can never forget the child of her womb, then, Mary, thou shalt never forget us.

As thou wert Co-Redemptrix in the acquisition of the graces of eternal life, be thou also our Co-Mediatrix in their dispensation. Nothing is impossible for thee, because thou art the Mother of Him Who can do all things.

If thy Son did not refuse thy request at the banquet of Cana, He will not refuse it at the celestial banquet where thou art crowned as Queen of Angels and Saints. Intercede, therefore, to thy Divine Son that He may change the waters of my weakness into the wine of thy strength. Mary, thou art the Refuge of Sinners! Pray for us now prostrate at the foot of the Cross. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.

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HomeArticleThe Seven Last Words of Jesus: Powerful Meditations By Ven. Abp. Fulton Sheen
The Seven Last Words of Jesus: Powerful Meditations By Ven. Abp. Fulton Sheen
“It is finished.” (John 19:30)



Caroline Perkins
Caroline Perkins, April 15, 2025 — 7 minutes read – ChurchPOP


Why should we meditate on the final words of Jesus from the cross?



the seven last words of jesusCaroline Perkins, ChurchPOP



As Venerable Fulton J. Sheen explained:

“There was never a preacher like the dying Christ. There was never a congregation like that which gathered about the pulpit of the Cross. There was never a sermon like the Seven Last Words.”

Father Raymond J. de Souza also shared this spiritual practice in the National Catholic Register:

“There is another Good Friday custom, that of the ‘Seven Last Words,’ made most famous in recent times by the Ven. Fulton Sheen, who preached the Seven Last Words every Good Friday for 58 years.”

Below are the last words of Jesus, alongside the corresponding scripture verse and prayer written by Ven. Fulton Sheen himself.



the seven last words of jesusCaroline Perkins, ChurchPOP



1) “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do!” (Lk. 23:34)

Prayer:

Dear Jesus, I do not want to know the wisdom of the world; I do not want to know on whose anvil snowflakes are hammered, or the hiding place of darkness, or from whose womb came the ice, or why the gold falls to the earth, earthly, and fire climbs to the heavens, heavenly; I do not want to know literature and science,nor the four-dimensional universe in which we live; I do not want to know the length of the universe in terms of light years; I do not want to know the breadth of the earth as it dances about the chariot of the sun; I do not want to know the heights of the stars, chaste candles of the night; I do not want to know the depth of the sea, nor the secrets of its watery palace. I want to be ignorant of all these things. I want only to know the length, the breadth, and the height and the depth of Thy redeeming Love on the Cross, Sweet Savior of Men. I want to be ignorant of everything in the world – everything but You, dear Jesus. And then, by the strangest of strange paradoxes, I shall be wise!



2) “This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.” (Lk. 23:43)

Prayer:

Dear Jesus! Your kindness to the penitent thief recalls the prophetic words of the Old Testament, “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be as red as crimson, they shall be white as wool.” In your words of forgiveness to the penitent thief, I understand now the meaning of your words, “I am not come to call the just, but sinners. . . They that are in health need not a physician, but they that are ill.” “There shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance.” I see now why Peter was not made Thy first vicar on earth until after he had fallen three times, in order that the Church of which he was the head might forever understand forgiveness and pardon. Jesus, I begin to see that if I had never sinned, I never could call You “Savior.” The thief is not the only sinner. Here am I! But Thou art the only Savior.



3) “Woman, behold thy Son.” (Jn. 19:26-27)

Prayer:

O, Mary! As Jesus was born to thee in thy first Nativity of the flesh, so we have been born of thee in thy second Nativity of the spirit. Thus thou didst beget us into a new world of spiritual relationship with God as our Father, Jesus as our Brother, and thou as our Mother! If a Mother can never forget the child of her womb, then, Mary, thou shalt never forget us.

As thou wert Co-Redemptrix in the acquisition of the graces of eternal life, be thou also our Co-Mediatrix in their dispensation. Nothing is impossible for thee, because thou art the Mother of Him Who can do all things.

If thy Son did not refuse thy request at the banquet of Cana, He will not refuse it at the celestial banquet where thou art crowned as Queen of Angels and Saints. Intercede, therefore, to thy Divine Son that He may change the waters of my weakness into the wine of thy strength. Mary, thou art the Refuge of Sinners! Pray for us now prostrate at the foot of the Cross. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.



the seven last words of jesusCaroline Perkins, ChurchPOP



4) “My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46 & Mark 15:34)

Prayer:

Jesus, Thou art now atoning for those moments when we are neither hot nor cold, members neither of heaven nor of earth, for now, Thou art suffering between the two: rejected by the one, abandoned by the other.

Because Thou wouldst not give up sinful humanity, Thy Heavenly Father hid His Face from Thee. Because Thou wouldst not give up The Heavenly Father, sinful humanity turned its back to Thee. And thus in holy fellowship, Thou didst unite us both.

No longer can men say that God does not know what a heart suffers in abandonment, for now, Thou art abandoned.No longer can men complain that God does not know the wounds of an inquiring heart which feels not the Divine Presence, for now, that sweet Presence is seemingly hidden from Thee.

Jesus, now I understand pain, abandonment, and suffering, for I see that even the sun has its eclipse. But Jesus, why do I not learn? Teach me that just as Thou didst not make Thy own Cross, neither shall I make my own, but accept the one Thou makest for me. Tell me, how long, how long, O Lord, will I keep Thee writhing on the Cross?



5) “I thirst.” (John 19:28-29)

Prayer:

Dear Jesus, Thou hast given all for me, and yet I give nothing in return. How often Thou hast come to gather vintage in the vineyard of my soul, and hast found only a few clusters! How often thou soughtest, and found nothing; knocked and the door of my soul was closed to Thee! How often Thou didst ask for a drink, and I gave Thee only vinegar and gall!

How often, dear Jesus, I feared lest having Thee, I must have naught beside. I forget that if I had the flame, I would forget the spark; if I had the sun of Thy love, I could forget the candle of a human heart; if I had the perfect round of Thy happiness, I could forget the broken arc of earth. Oh, Jesus, my story is the sad story of a refusal to return heart for heart, love for love. Give me, above all human gifts, the sweet gift of sympathy for Thee.



6) “It is finished.” (John 19:30)

Prayer:

Dear Jesus, redemption is Thy work; atonement is mine, for atonement means at-one-ment with Thy life. Thy truth and Thy love. Thy work on the Cross is finished, but my work is to take you down. Thou hast been hanging there long enough! Through Thy Apostle, Paul, Thou hast told us that those who are Thine crucify their flesh and its concupiscences. My work, then, is not finished until I take Thy place upon the Cross, for unless there is a Good Friday in my life, there will never be an Easter Sunday; unless there is a garment of a fool, there will never be the white robes of wisdom; unless there is the crown of thorns, there will never be the glorified body; unless there is the battle, there will never be the victory; unless there is the thirst, there will never be the Heavenly Refreshment unless there is the Cross, there will never be the empty tomb. Teach me, Jesus, to finish this task, for it is fitting that the sons of men should suffer and enter into their glory.



7) “Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit.” (Luke 23:46)

Prayer:

No, Mary! Bethlehem is not come back. This is not the crib, but the Cross; not birth, but death; not the day of companionship with Shepherds and Kings, but the hour of a common death with thieves; not Bethlehem, but Calvary.

Bethlehem is Jesus, as thou. His sinless mother gave Him to man; Calvary is Jesus, as sinful man gave Him back to thee. Something intervened between Thy giving at the manger, and thy receiving at the Cross, and that which intervened is my sins.

Mary, this is not thy hour; it is my hour – my hour of wickedness and sin. If I had not sinned, death would not now hover its black wings about His crimsoned body; if I had not been proud, the atoning crown of thorns would never have been woven; if I had been less rebellious in treading the broad way which leads to destruction, the feet never would have been dug with nails;if I had been more responsive to His shepherding calls from the thorns and thistles, His lips would have never been on fire; if I had been more faithful, His cheeks would never have been blistered with the kiss of Judas.

Mary, it is I who stand between His birth and His approaching redemptive death!I warn thee, Mary, think not when thy arms come to clasp Him, that He is white as He came from the Father, but red as He came from me. In a few short seconds, thy Son shall have surrendered His soul to His Heavenly Father, and His body to thy caressing hands.

The last few drops of blood are falling from that great Chalice of Redemption, staining the wood of the Cross and crimsoning the rocks soon to be rent in horror – and a single drop of it would be sufficient to redeem ten thousand worlds.

Mary, my mother, intercede to thy Divine Son for forgiveness of the sin of changing thy Bethlehem into Calvary. Beg Him, Mary, in these last remaining seconds the grace of never crucifying Him again piercing thy own heart with seven swords. Mary, plead to thy dying Son that as long as I live. . . Mary! Jesus is dead. . . Mary!



Prayers are excerpts from The Seven Last Words, by Venerable Fulton John Sheen, 1933, published by Our Sunday Visitor, Huntington, Indiana, Imprimatur of Bishop John Francis Noll, D.D., Diocese of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

04/02/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BCbeJm3F2/

04/01/2026

Originally posted by Levend Montgomery:

THE GOD WE DIDN'T ORDER

Every kingdom has a coronation it later regrets.

The branches were cut and waving before anyone bothered to ask what kind of king they were crowning. The coats hit the road before anyone considered where the road actually led. A city full of people who had spent four hundred years rehearsing their liberation finally saw the man who could deliver it — and they opened their mouths and begged Him to do it on their terms.

He did not.

And five days later, they killed Him for it.

There is a version of Palm Sunday that most Western churches perform each spring, and it is almost entirely hollow. Children process down center aisles clutching palm fronds made of construction paper. The choir sings something triumphant. The sermon mentions donkeys and humility, wraps in a neat bow, and everyone is home before the brisket dries out.

What gets lost is the blood in the word.

The Hebrew behind the shout that day — hoshia na — is not a hymn lyric. It is a field hospital prayer. It is the sound a nation makes when it has exhausted every political strategy, every military alliance, every diplomatic maneuver, and stands before God with nothing left but the raw nerve of desperation. Psalm 118:25 is not a worship chorus. It is the last resort of a people who have nowhere else to turn.

Save us, we beg you.

That is what the crowd screamed as Jesus entered Jerusalem. Not a welcome. An ultimatum dressed in garlands.

Here is the thing we need to reckon with, and it will not be comfortable: the crowd's theology was technically correct. They identified the right Messiah. They pulled from the right psalm. They even located the right prophecy — Zechariah 9:9, the king arriving on a young donkey. Their exegesis was pristine.

Their application was catastrophic.

Because what they wanted from the Messiah was not what the Messiah came to do. The crowd wanted a political reversal. They wanted Rome's sandal off their neck. They wanted a throne in Jerusalem occupied by one of their own and a military capable of ensuring it stayed that way. They had been colonized, taxed into poverty, humiliated for generations — and when they finally saw the prophet from Galilee riding toward the temple, they projected onto Him every ounce of their national rage and called it faith.

This is a mistake the church has never stopped making.

We do it with politics. We do it with culture wars. We do it with our private suffering. We come to God with a script already written — the villain identified, the resolution predetermined, the timeline non-negotiable — and when He refuses to read the lines we've assigned Him, we do not reconsider our script. We reconsider our God.

The tragedy of Palm Sunday is not that Jerusalem rejected Jesus. The tragedy is that Jerusalem welcomed Him — for a rescue He never intended to perform in the way they demanded it. They wanted emancipation from Rome. He was offering emancipation from something far older and far more entrenched than any empire. And they could not see the difference because the rescue they wanted was louder than the salvation He brought.

We should be careful here. The crowd was not foolish. Their suffering was real. Roman occupation was not a metaphor — it was taxation without mercy, crucifixion as public policy, cultural erasure enforced at the edge of a gladius. When a mother in first-century Jerusalem screamed hoshia na, she may have been thinking of a son conscripted to carry a Roman soldier's pack for a mile, or a daughter who could not walk through certain streets without risk. The ache behind the shout was legitimate. The pain was not the problem.

The problem was the prescription.

They diagnosed their deepest wound as political and demanded a political cure. Jesus diagnosed their deepest wound as something that politics could never reach — the severed communion between creature and Creator, the rot of sin that no regime change could touch, the death that no army could defeat. He did not dismiss their suffering. He reframed it inside a larger story they were not yet able to hear. And the distance between the story they were telling and the story He was living is the distance between Sunday's hosanna and Friday's crucify Him.

Matthew's Gospel records that when Jesus entered the city, "the whole city was stirred" — the Greek word is eseisthē, the same root that gives us "seismic." Jerusalem did not merely notice Him. The ground of their certainty shook. And the first question out of the rattled city was revealing: "Who is this?" Even in the middle of the parade, the city was not sure what it was celebrating.

That uncertainty is more honest than most of our worship.

Because if we are truthful, much of contemporary Christian worship functions the same way the Palm Sunday procession did — we bring the right words, the right songs, the right theological vocabulary, and underneath all of it runs an unspoken contract: God, here is what I need you to be. The prayers sound surrendered, but the heart has already decided what the answer should look like. We sing "Thy will be done" while holding a detailed blueprint of what that will had better include.

Jesus wept over Jerusalem that day. Luke 19:41 says He saw the city and cried over it — not because they hated Him, but because they could not recognize the thing that would bring them peace. The peace was standing in front of them on the back of a donkey, and they were too busy looking for a warhorse to see it.

This is the spiritual disease of every era, not only the first century. We want a God who confirms. A God who validates the categories we have already chosen, blesses the enemies we have already identified, and rubber-stamps the future we have already planned. The consumer Christ. The political chaplain. The divine endorsement of whatever we were going to do anyway.

And what rides into our lives instead — every time, without exception — is a King on a donkey. A savior who looks like a servant. A Messiah whose first act upon arriving in the capital is to weep over it, and whose second act is to overturn the tables in the temple rather than the seats in the senate.

The God we get is never the God we ordered.

The American church, in particular, has spent the better part of a century waving branches at a Christ it keeps trying to recruit. We have tried to make Him a Republican. We have tried to make Him a Democrat. We have tried to make Him a life coach, a therapy supplement, a prosperity engine, a cultural warrior, a social justice mascot. And each time we succeed in domesticating Him for our purposes, we lose the very thing that makes Him worth following — the unnerving, uncontrollable, self-giving holiness that refuses to serve any agenda smaller than the redemption of all things.

A Jesus who fits neatly into your political platform is not Jesus. He is a mascot wearing a crown of thorns as a costume.

But this is not only a cultural diagnosis. It is a personal one.

You have done this. I have done this. We have come to God in our private Jerusalems — in the hospital room, in the fractured marriage, in the career that collapsed, in the grief that will not lift — and we have screamed hoshia na with a very specific rescue in mind. Heal this person. Fix this relationship. Open this door. Remove this suffering. And when God did not perform the extraction we requested, we felt the same thing the crowd felt on Friday: betrayal.

He was supposed to save us. Why doesn't this look like saving?

Because salvation, in the grammar of God, has never meant the removal of suffering. It has meant the redemption of it. The cross is not God's failure to rescue. It is the rescue — accomplished through the very agony we would have edited out of the story if we had been given the pen. The donkey was always heading toward Golgotha. The parade was always a funeral procession that the crowd mistook for a victory march.

And the resurrection that followed was not a reversal of the suffering. It was the suffering's vindication — proof that what looked like defeat was, in fact, the only power capable of swallowing death whole.

So what do we do with this?

We learn to pray the word again — honestly, this time. Hosanna. Save us. Not save us the way we've already decided. Not save us on our schedule, within our categories, using our preferred instruments. Save us the way only You can, which will almost certainly look like something we did not choose and would not have designed.

This is the hardest prayer in the Christian life. Not because the words are complicated, but because they require the one thing the Palm Sunday crowd could not offer: surrender of the outcome. To pray hosanna and mean it — to genuinely place the method, the timeline, and the shape of your rescue in the hands of a God who rode to His own death on a borrowed animal — is to abandon the illusion that you know what saving looks like.

Most of us would rather keep waving branches.

This Holy Week, the procession begins again. The palms will wave. The songs will rise. And somewhere beneath the pageantry, the ancient cry will echo — save us, we beg you.

Let it be a real prayer this time. Let it cost you the script you've been clutching. Let it open your hands to a salvation that looks nothing like what you expected — and everything like what you actually need.

The King is still riding. The donkey is still moving. And the road still leads where it has always led — not to the throne you imagined, but to a cross, a tomb, and an empty grave that rewrites every definition of victory you have ever held.

Hosanna. Save us. And God help us to let You.

- Levend Montgomery

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