Let us pray. O Lord, our God, whose insight is without compare and whose glory surpasses understanding, whose mercy is without measure and love of men beyond telling, look thou, O Master, according to thy tenderness of heart on all those who are gathered here together and deal with us and those who pray and work with us in the riches of thy mercies and thy compassions, who liveth and reigneth world without end. Thank you. I hope you will not be disappointed when you meet the man himself.

[01:02]

Thank you very much for what you have said. It's so really encouraging, you know, and now especially because one must say that this new Holy Week that we are going to celebrate, we are looking forward, the great joy really is the fulfillment of many expectations and of preparations and of work that has been going on for years and we did never have the hope really it would come and have these fruits so soon. But that we owe as it was pointed out really to the extraordinary initiative and broad-mindedness and courage, one must say too, tremendous courage of our present Holy Father.

[02:04]

I chose this title, God's People, in Holy Week on purpose because it seems to me that one can characterize and praise and appreciate the work of our present Holy Father in pointing out to you the concept and the, you can say, the essence of such a basic idea as that of the people of God. You are the people of God. What the Holy Father wants especially with this restoration of Holy Week, is to give you a living experience of what the people of God really is.

[03:11]

The work of Pius the Twit is, as you know very well, the climax of principles that had been pronounced first by St. Pius X. When he, in his remarkable and memorable encyclical, Es Sumi Apostolatus Cathedra, said that for the fulfillment of his program, that all things should be restored in Christ Jesus. And for the fulfillment of this program, it was absolutely necessary that the people again became active in the sacred liturgy, that there in this liturgical activity was the thought

[04:24]

of that spirit which alone could restore all things in Christ. And you know how he proceeded, how he started from the things which are at his time, were at his time, let us say the closest and the easiest to understand for the people. and that is the participation, the essential participation in the Mass through receiving the Holy Communion. Therefore the frequent communion, therefore the communion of the sick, therefore the communion of the children, and so on. Pius XI has perhaps, due to the circumstances of his pontificate, did not have the opportunity to do as much in the field of liturgical reform as Pius X was able to do. But he also, in that wonderful constitution, apostolic constitution, divini cultus, Pius XI, too clearly, and one can say really with an urgency,

[05:45]

a special urgency, said that it is absolutely necessary, he said per necessit, absolutely necessary, that the Catholic people begin again to be active at the performance of the sacred liturgy, that they should alternate their voices with those of their priests, that in this way the beauty of the liturgy should become a real inner spiritual experience for them. Now Pius XII really has done things which absolutely just astonish the world and the Christian he has put this entire idea of active participation in the liturgy on a sound, the deepest dogmatic basis.

[06:58]

In that encyclical, Mystici Corporis, in which he explains the nature of the church as a living organism directed by the priest and coiling into life, incorporating the lay people into a, as I say, a living organism. Then he proceeded in the encyclical Mediator Dei to apply the principles of mystici corporis to the liturgy itself. so that in this encyclical, for the first time, we have, as I say, the malacarta of the liturgical movement, the first encyclical of the popes that has treated expressly and exclusively on the nature of the liturgy of the church, basing it on the fact that

[08:09]

if the whole of the church is Christ's mystical body, that then also the liturgy of the church must be the prayer of the head and the whole body. That the liturgy of the church is the worship which the whole Christ offers to his heavenly Father. and therefore the principle of active participation absolutely a commonplace and inevitable necessity. But then in the practical realization of these principles of media today, he proceeded, or let us say he took his start from the celebration of the Easter Vigil. And I want to call your attention to that because that is for the whole thinking of the present Holy Father and for his wishes of basic importance.

[09:22]

He wanted to show, as it is said also in this beautiful past classical, pastoral instruction, that I hope that those things are translated in English. Are they not? You see, the new order of Holy Week has a general decree first, and then it has a special pastoral instruction in order to indicate in which spirit, you know, again, You have no idea, maybe you have an idea, how tremendously revolutionary this whole procedure really is. The very fact that, for example, this Easter vigil was, instead of being ordered or imposed upon the church, That it was first for several five years offered at experimentum is in itself a complete revolution in, let us say, enrollment procedure.

[10:38]

Completely has never been done before. I hope you realize these things, you know, and I hope you take also from it the, let us say, the fact that that the Roman authority wants, especially in the things of the liturgy, wants the living response and reaction, wants to cooperate with the body of the church and doesn't want simply to lay down the law. There are too many people who still think, you know, always When it comes to Rome, oh, that is that dreadful place where they make the laws. Oh, they point, you know, to these two famous figures on Ponte Milvio, you know, one St. Peter, you know, who has his finger pointing here to this place, you know, and St.

[11:41]

Paul who stands there and points. And everybody says, and here we make the laws, and you out there, you keep them. But I mean, these things, that's a misrepresentation, you know. It's a completely new, for example, this whole new Holy Week. These do not fit. That this new Holy Week is the result of some people who get together around a green table and then say, now we make a new liturgy. Absolutely not. That's the result of years and years of international study. Not only of a little group of scholars who happen to be involved, but of people all over the world. So what I wanted to say is this, that here you have another very, to say, unusual procedure.

[12:45]

I mean that to this, to these rubrics here, an instruction has been written which indicates now what, let us say, what is the spirit? What do we expect, you know, of this before? And there is, for example, said about the Paschal Vigil And they say, now the people should be as it is here. First of all, it is said, the faithful should be. They should carefully be prepared. And they should be carefully instructed. about the specific liturgical nature of the paschal vigil. And then it says that this new paschal vigil has the principal purpose to show clearly

[13:55]

that all our salvation, that all Christian life and all Christian grace comes, springs from the saving death of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that therefore this Paschal Vigil should be celebrated by all inactive participation in a way that this mystery, the central mystery of our salvation, becomes a living experience of everybody. So I mean, of course, that's just one little point. But I wanted to point out this, that the very fact that the Holy Father's, let us say, big-scale initiative in restoring the active participation of the faithful in the liturgy, not only as he did in Mediato Dei, encouraged, as I say, the current ways through dialogue, mass, and so on, in which that had been done before, but that here he creates a new liturgical form

[15:18]

of course, which at the same time is not a new, let's say, just a new fashion, but is a going back, you know, to the clear and classical Christian tradition, for the purpose that the people of God may clearly see that its life, its living participation is the fruit of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. I wanted to make that clear a little just to tell you about the people of God, you know, because when, for example, this Holy Week, starts with the possession of the people on Palm Sunday, with the palm branches. Now, one should immediately realize that this possession, as the Holy Father there really makes obligatory for the whole of Christianity, that this possession, you see, takes its intended to take the place

[16:34]

are, let us say, public demonstrations, which up to now have taken place among Catholic circles in various countries. For example, in this country we have parades. I'm not only thinking, I'm not speaking against St. Patrick's Parade, you know, and I think nobody should be afraid, you know. I think, no. That's the Spanish, you know, of Hibernia, you know. And that is very nice, but I mean that is not a demonstration of faith, you know. Or maybe it would be good just to think about it a little, you know.

[17:37]

Now, isn't those the people of God, you know, that is marching there? And in 1938, when I came to this country, one of my first experiences was not a St. Patrick's Parade, but it was a holy name parade, a holy name parade. I'd never seen anything like that before. The pastor and all the clergy, you know, went to that with their cutaways, I mean, they're more social, you know, thing, and they sit cutaway, and the tremendous hat, they all have these hats on, you know, the, you know, how was I? See, the high hat, you know, and I think also a cane belonged to the thing. And, you know, and it just floored me, you know, I mean, I've never seen anything like it, you know.

[18:39]

But if I try to analyze my reaction, I think one reaction was that I was, yeah, I'm You know, I thought it was one of these boundary, I mean, manifestations, you know, I mean, things that are on the, I would say, on the periphery, you know, I mean, you don't know if it's this, I mean, you have to say it's the witness, you know, the public witness of the people of God, you see, before, let's say, the American public. No, I don't know. I mean, there are things like the top hat or the cane or the cutaway that kind of makes you doubtful about it. I mean, I don't know, I don't mean it subjectively, you know, but kind of objectively. Now, there you have certain, that are public demonstrations of what we call, maybe call American Catholicism.

[19:44]

Well, I think that's the difference between American Catholicism and the church, you know. The ecclesia, the ecclesia, the people of God, you know, the ecclesia. And there are other manifestos, public manifestos, for example, the processional on Corpus Christi. The possession on Corpus Christi is a thing which is traditional in the Catholic sections of Europe. But you see that the Corpus Christi possession, of course, has a different, let's say, that has a different character in this way, that it definitely is a public manifestation of faith. It is a counter-reformation. It's a demonstration of the Counter-Reformation. It is the public confession of the Catholic people, of their faith in the real presence.

[20:51]

And because the Counter-Reformation followed the whole part of the time of the Reformation, followed the principle, cuius regio eius religio, to whom who has the power in the country, he determines the religion, he determines the faith. The political power determines the faith. That was the principle of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. So the Counter, the Catholic Counter-Reformation in this public demonstration of faith in the real presence also, let us say, demonstrated before the public the Catholic character of the common we, of the public, of the state, or whatever it was, where this procession was being celebrated, so that it was absolutely immersed, for example, in Munich,

[22:00]

the times of the kings, you know, and, of course, the king would march in the procession, and the mayor, and all the magistrates, and all the nobilities, and, of course, the army, and the soldiers, and the whole business, you know, was there. That is, this Corpus Christi procession in that form, you know, simply is the public proclamation of the whole Catholic body, see, Catholic body. in there, let us say, in there, the banner, you know, of their faith. And that is the Holy Eucharist, the real presence. It is absolutely evident that such a demonstration has a meaning only in a Christian country. It has no meaning in any pagan world, even it is impossible. Because in a pagan world you would not carry the sacred species because you would expose it to the mockery of the people.

[23:08]

That became very evident to me when I was in Italy last year. And I saw several, now Italy is supposedly a Catholic country, I saw several of these little Eucharistic processions. It was absolutely surprising and shocking what a percentage of people remained, for example, by the passage of the Blessed Sacrament, absolutely standing in an open attitude of defiance. Now it is completely, we don't need St. Thomas who tells us that the sacred species are not there to be exposed to the eyes and the mockeries of those who have lost the faith. We don't need St. Thomas to tell us that such a religious demonstration in a world which is not Christian anymore is impossible.

[24:12]

It is therefore this, you see, this procession on Palm Sunday is intended to take kind of place of, let us say, public demonstrations of Catholicism. And also of these, let us say, for example, this Counter-Reformation Corpus Christi procession. less and less, as I say, advisable. Lee Palm's Sunday procession has a completely different character. Now let us speak first a little about that. And I wanted just to give you a little idea of the people of God. What does that mean, the people of God? Now, if you take the Old Testament, there we have the Jewish people as the chosen people of God.

[25:15]

However, this Jewish nation was not a political power at any time of its history. And I think that is of greatest importance to remember that right away. The Jewish people, as you find in Deuteronomy, was not chosen, as Holy Scripture says, because it was a powerful nation. It was not chosen because, let us say, it was naturally religious, let us say, by nature pious or devout. No. But this people was chosen because it was a smell and insignificant. Because it was by nature, as Holy Scripture says, a stiff-necked people. That means a bunch of individualists, you know, really.

[26:22]

Everybody has a head of his own. Still has. So, therefore, the people of God there was, let's say, first of all, a nation, but then not a powerful nation, not a, let us say, very tremendously by nature preferred, you know, to be a devout nation, as we would say, for example, today of India, you see, that the Indians are by nature contemplatives. The Jewish nation was not by nature contemplative. So another thing that I wanted to call your attention to, and that is this, that when the Jewish nation proceeded, let us say, to prosper into a kingdom, that then, at the height of its national prosperity and grandeur,

[27:22]

right away the catastrophe of the split, you know, occurred. That the last result of that division of the South, Southern, and the Northern Kingdom was the gradual subjugation by more powerful pagan nobles The last result was the loss of the kingdom and the existence in the exile. And it was the exile that then were formed for what we call the remnant. The remnant. That means within this natural body. of a people one in race, I mean the Jewish people. The development was this, you know, that the, let us say, the political power of this race as race was destroyed, that this destruction of the political power brought forth as its result and as its fruit what Isaiah and all the prophets call the remnant.

[28:45]

the faithful remnant. Now, this faithful remnant was stripped, you see, of all, let us say, political shape, any part. This remnant was the group, the invisible group, one can say, of the poorer ones, of the ones who were, in German we say, die stillen in Lande. The meat was. Those who had nothing to oppose, not even to the political intrigues of their own big shots. This unknown, poor, lame, blind, and meek crowd, you know, that was the real people of God. So, towards the end, what I wanted to show is this.

[29:46]

The birth of the people of God goes through and is the fruit of, as one can say, natural crucifixion. That's really what it is. Now, that becomes much more evident as soon as we turn from the Jewish chosen people to the chosen people of the New Testament. You will, I think, gain very much in the light of these thoughts that I have put before you. You would read in the Epistle of the Romans, St. Paul's exegesis and explanation of the, let us say, the spirit and the nature of the people of God in chapter 9, chapter 10, 11, and 12. In these chapters, which, by the way, also have an immediate reference to Palm Sunday, because it is in chapter 10, chapter 11, that St.

[30:56]

Paul explains the famous symbolism of the olive branch, the olive tree. And the way he says, oh, you are an olive branch only, What keeps you, what makes you a branch on the olive tree? It's only your base. These things are really of basic importance. The people of God, of the New Testament, First of all, it is made up in its great, great, great majority of those who were called for centuries not my people. But now my people. Why now my people? Only for the reason that they have accepted me.

[31:57]

the one who died for them as the true Messiah, Savior, and King. So it is this people of God, you can see that right away, is by no means, in any way, a political power organization. As soon as any thinking about the people of God go on this track, the true spiritual character, the essence of the people of God just has been lost. The people of God is born out of the open side of our Lord Jesus Christ, that side that has been opened by the lance of the soldier. And out of that side of the helpless, Victim Lord and King, the people of God is born because it is there on the cross that our Lord turned to his mother and said, Woman, behold your son.

[33:11]

And turned to John and said, Son, behold your mother. There was The birth of the people of God. Born out, one can say, out of the open side of the Lord, out of the blood of our Lord. One can see that, by the way, I just wanted to call your attention to that. If you follow this Lenten season, with really in that that you understand. Now, what is the purpose of the church in this Lenten season? The purpose is the establishment of the people of God. How does the church do that? If you go back to the first Sunday of Lent, what do we have as the gospel of the first Sunday of Lent? We have the devil offering to our Lord, you know, all this is yours, you know, if you fall down at the door.

[34:20]

That is the temptation. That's the temptation. The false kingdom offered to him, and he rejects it. And that is the beginning of Lent. And that is, of course, for all of us, the basic decision, you see. Which kingdom are we looking for? That, you know, which is offered to every one of us by the devil, if we adore him. Where is it the kingdom that our Lord, you know, then, reveals to us in a sudden glance on Mount Tabor? And that is the second Sunday of Lent on Mount Tabor. But then, you see, as soon, I would say, as St. Peter says, well, now, this is marvelous. There is the kingdom. Let us right away stay here and build huts. The glory disappears. That was the wrong understanding, again, of the kingdom of God.

[35:26]

On the second Sunday of Lent, we are invited to We're saying Peter to follow the Lord into the valley and to go with him to Jerusalem, not to stay on Mount Tabor. Because this Mount Tabor, this kingdom of God where Peter wants to build these huts, that is only the fruit of the crucifixion and nothing else. We have the third Sunday of Lent, you know, where the woman, you know, cries out and says, oh, wonderful, the woman that gave you life, you know. And our Lord says, now those who hear the word and keep it, those who do the will of the Father, they are my brother, my sister, excellent. Blessed are those who do the will of the Father.

[36:31]

Here again, you know, this woman, that was the wrong kingdom that she had in her mind. And when finally, when you come to Laetare Sunday, to tomorrow, now then again, you see it, you know, absolutely clearly. Rejoice austerely. That had no children. The sterile, the one that had no children, she may rejoice. Who is the one that had no children? The smarter sterile. Now, that is the people of God, you know, that has given up earthly hopes and earthly fruitfulness. And you find that completely confirmed when you read and understand the gospel, tomorrow's gospel. That gospel ends, you know, with the attempt of the people to make him king because he multiplied the loaves.

[37:39]

He gave them to eat. And what did the Lord do? He ran away. He was hiding because he did not want to be that kind of king. I could continue that, but I mean it's only one Sunday that separates us from Palm Sunday. And Palm Sunday, then, is the profession and confession of loyalty to a king who is riding on an ass. The rex must wait to the meek king. That means the king has nothing in common political power in any kind of such display. The Rex Mons Ratus, that means the king who died on the cross without saying a word, that means the Lamb of God, that is the Rex, the meek king. And who then greets him?

[38:43]

Now, they are the children who greet. But children, because there is the kingdom of this Rex Manthretus, of this meek king. You see, the political bosses in Jerusalem, they invite, they tell him and tell the apostles, now, stop this noise, you know. Don't let them cry like this and shout, you know. And our Lord says, and if they, the children, would not shout, then the stones would begin to cry. Do you see the idea of it all? So that is absolutely necessary to understand. The people of God is that spiritual community which is born out of the sight of the one who gave his life that we may live through his death. That means that this new people of God lives on one principle, and that is the love that seeketh not her own.

[39:50]

That is called agape. And that is of basic, absolutely of basic importance in this entire wisdom. Anybody who would consider, let us say, if I'm selling the procession as intended here as a kind of Catholic demonstration of showing the people how many we are, you see, or showing the communists that we can do it too, you know, or something like that, you know. And that we have even, let us say, a few thousand more than they have. It's all nonsense. It is just. In this convention, it would simply be blasphemy. It would be blasphemy. It's not a demonstration, you see, of numbers and of power. And that is the reason why, you see, we have to agree, if we make this procession on Palm Sunday, we have to become children.

[40:51]

And what does that mean? Children means those who, in the mind of our Lord Jesus Christ, means those who don't even understand what political power is. Thank God. Children are those who just let us stay without power. simple enough, you know, to accept in faith, in absolutely absolute faith, the heroes, so to speak. Therefore, children, as children, we make this possession, as those who alone can enter into the kingdom of God. That means that is, for example, the reason to be, why we, as it is said in Holy Scripture, of course, we They took their garments, and that always means the coat. And the coat that is, you know, in the antiquity you have two garments.

[41:53]

One is the tunic and the other is the coat. The tunic is what everybody has. Everybody has. The coat is what makes the social distinctions. Now, they certainly didn't take off their tunics when our Lord came into Jerusalem, but they took off their, I mean, their shirts in that way, you know. But they took off their coats. And that is what makes the social distinction. That is the rank, you know. So one can say that these happy people, when they greeted the Rex Mansuetos, Mansuetos got rid of their bourgeois existence, you know. and just put it under the feet of that ass, you know, that it may travel on. So, I mean, this demonstration has to be seen in its true character. Out of the mouth of children and babes you have built a fortress of praise.

[42:59]

That is the idea. You take, I cannot do it tonight, you know, but you take that chapter 11 and the chapter 10 of the Epistle to the Romans and read it. And you will see in this chapter 10 also the meaning of a Christian what we call confession, a confessio, a public manifestation. St. Paul explains it there. He says, the one who is engrafted in the new olive tree, the one who belongs to the people of God, what does he do? He says, there are two things that Holy Scripture asks of him, but these two things belong absolutely together, and that is to confess with your mouth and to believe in your heart.

[44:02]

That are the two things that belong together. Therefore, the confession in which we say, Hosanna in excelsis, has a meaning only if it comes out of that faith. And what is that faith? It is the humble acceptance of the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ, in his infinite love, laid down his life for his enemies, and that we belong to his enemies, as that by dying for us, his enemies, he made us his children. Anybody who believes has absolutely no claims, you know, doesn't move in the, let us say, in the realm of right and of reward and of this and of that. Absolutely not.

[45:04]

But who believes, you know, simply confess you, they confess you of our mouth that Christ is the Lord. and the faith in our hearts that he saved us through his blood. And that is the inner attitude of the people of God. That and that alone makes us people of God. You read, for example, Psalm 21, a psalm which is, again, you know, of such significance in this holy week. The martyr psalm. The son of our Lord, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. My Lord, my Lord, why hast my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He, our Lord, on the cross, going into that absolute solitude of the one who alone carries the burden of our sins.

[46:06]

But then passing through this door of death, you know, he enters into the land of liberty where when he announces the name of God in the Ecclesia Magna among many brethren in the congregation of the saints. So he passing through his death grows into the, let us say, enters into the wide spaces of his mystical body, so that you can clearly see that we are his children only because he died for us, and that therefore we cannot become his children without dying with him. that therefore we cannot share, we cannot enter into the people of God without being baptized into his death. Baptized into his death.

[47:08]

And then you have to understand that this baptism is the continuous, let us say, form, pattern of your entire spiritual life. Dying in baptism sacramentally, for dying day by day in and with him not looking at the independent, our natural positions, you know, our natural influence, and so on, but dying with him that though we may rise with him as children of God, So that has to be seen. That is so necessary that you realize that, for example, taking palm branches into your hand, taking olive branches into your hand, taking branches into your hand means that you in public confess, yes, you are branches on the tree.

[48:11]

I would much better say, because that makes it much clearer, Because this tree, what is this tree? This tree that of which we are branches, that tree is in itself a shoot out of the stump of Jesse. And I put all the emphasis on that word stump. Because that is what is said in all the scripture. That is the word of the prophecy. And stump means, you know, simply the ugly rest, you know, of what has once been a tremendous and beautiful and majestic tree. And the shoot, the new shoot of our Lord Jesus, finally the written failure, rises out of the stump of Jesse. And we all, every individual Christian, is a shoot out of the stump of Jesse. That means of this little rest, you know, of what once had been a big tree, but had been cut down, you know.

[49:16]

And then again comes to a new life. Even the word that we say, Hosanna, what does it mean, Hosanna? That Hosanna is again one of the basic words of Holy Scripture. Has in it and is derived from the same word from which the word Jesus is derived. That means it means salvation. It means Save us, do, oh, save us, please, you know. Hosanna is an intensive call, you know. Save us, please, save us. So, this people of God, you know, what is on our lips? What is the voice of praise? It is the cry for mercy, for salvation, that clearly comes from above and is no way the result of any mobilization of our natural resources.

[50:28]

So you see here right away that this Palm Sunday procession also has the character of greeting the one who comes. You see, it is the king who comes. in whatever way, let us say, is the result or the fruit of a tremendous national effort, you know. I have seen that in a classical historical case that should stand before us vividly, but unfortunately is being passed, forgotten. And that is the way in which, for example, a man like Hitler was lifted up on the shoulders of an entire people. Why? It was a tremendous national effort, you know. And it had everybody spellbound, you know. And why did they look up on their shoulders in that tremendous effort?

[51:35]

And really, you have no idea what an energy there exploded, you know, in that regime, you see, and in this exaltation of the Fuhrer. Or take, for example, the Duce Mussolini. Now, the Italians never have that bloody seriousness about anything they are doing, I mean, on that line. But unfortunately, the Germans have, you know. And they paid heavily for it. So, what I mean is the same thing, you know. Always remember, never forget, you know. that Mussolini started his participation in the war on the side of Hitler by invading Albania. Of course, that was the most innocent victim that he could choose, you know, the lion, you know, that jumps, you know, now, not at the other lion, because that would be too dangerous, but jumps on a little lamb, you see, that was Albania.

[52:39]

But, my dear friends, that was done on a Friday. That was done on Good Friday. One should never forget these things. It was done on Good Friday. That was the day of the invasion of Albania. So, I mean, all these things, for example, two and the other, now this is a digression, I don't know if I... But I never, I must say, I never can forget those things. You know, when we first, it was in the second year of the fascist regime that we went down to Rome to first, it was my first going to Rome as a student. And we were in the train by night from Ravenna to Rome. And there we were all together as students, you know, Benedictines in our habits, of course, and they came in Italian. And he felt sure in these clerical surroundings, you know, so he kind of, you know, unloaded himself. How was that? Yes, is it a good word? And then he said, you know, now I'm sure, you see, he said that in his Italian, you know, in that exuberance, you know, Mussolini will never be forgiven.

[53:50]

We said, now, why not? And I have seen him, you know, I see him in Ravenna, on the Piazza Ravenna, in the famous communist red Settimana rossa. I think it was in 1927. Or was it? No, no, it was earlier. It must have been earlier. It was earlier, 1918. I mean, right after the Settimana rossa. There he was, you know, he said, and he got the people into an absolute frenzy. And finally he had brought them to this picture that they stormed the chapel in which marketplace in Ravenna, the Blessed Sacrament was exposed. You know, they stormed the chapel, took the Blessed Sacrament and the ciborium out of the tabernacle, brought it out through the piazza, you see, and threw it on the ground and trampled on it this whole, I mean, absolutely demented crowd, you know, with Mussolini looking up.

[54:55]

And I was struck, you know, struck really when I heard later, you see, that Mussolini died by his people, his own people, trampling him to death. I mean, he was trampled to death in the streets of Milan. No, his dead body, you see, was just trampled to Milan, the streets of Milan. So, I mean, these things are realities. We should read, you know, the sign of history also in our day, and we should not forget it, you know. But I only say that in order to indicate, you see, that what is the true nature of the people of God. We follow the Lamb. We greatly respect Jesus, and that is the meaning of the Palm Sunday procession. Now, I would say this way, the power of Sunday procession, therefore, is the manifestation of the people of God greeting the one who comes.

[55:58]

That means the king who is not the fruit, let us say, of any, let us say, of our natural efforts, you know, of our national efforts, or any effort from our part. He comes to us. He comes to us. He is therefore by us expected, as you find that in this beautiful antephron, which, thank God, has been reserved, you know, to us, Ave Rex Nostra, this wonderful antephron of Palm Sunday. Ave Rex Nostra. I would be tempted, you know, to read it to you if it were not absolutely probably stupidity because it takes too much time, you know. But there it is, Ave Rex Nostra. to hail our king, freely David, son of David, redemptor mundi, savior of the world, whom the prophets foretold that he would come as the, come as the savior to the house of Israel.

[57:06]

Because thee, salutare in victima, a salvation, a victim which brings salvation, a saving victim. The Father has sent into this world, see, that is the mission of the divine agape, of that love that seeketh not her own. Can expectar and omnes sancti exorigena mundi, for whom all the saints from the beginning of the world were waiting and longing. And now we finally exclaim, it is said here, O son of David, save us, you save us, please, son of David. So that is the first thing. This participation of the people of God in Holy Week starts with this magnificent manifestation of our faith in the saving King who saves us by giving his life for us.

[58:27]

And when we take the branches into our hands, we say, and we confess before the world that we belong to him. The truth out of the stump of this thing. Dear friends, everybody has to be ready to become stumped, you know, in that way. Really, we have to realize that our life, which we as Christians and as people of God, which we are longing for, is not the prolongation of our nature, but it is really a life which comes completely out of the mercy and the grace of God. So this Palm Sunday procession then made it clear our relation as people of God before the public, you know.

[59:16]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_91.96