I have already written two posts on Hosanna Sunday (see below). I would especially draw your attention to the Syriac-based meditation, as that is fairly unique – at least in the English language. For now, I wish to add a further meditation. Humility, the virtue which is so central to that feast, begins in the soul. If we wish to have humility, we need to attend to our souls.
As I have grown older, I have realised that we talk about other people too much, and that this is a sign of a lack of humility – and with it- an excess of pride and vanity. When we mention others, it is often not merely unproductive but positively bad, even sinful. There is, in this alone, a certain pride: “I know this person, and I share in his virtues,” or “I can criticise this person and therefore I am better,” or “I can point out where this person made a mistake, and therefore I am wise.” If I examine what I say about other people, I may need to pause for a little, and to ponder it carefully, but I soon begin to see how a lack of humility or the sin of pride has started to enter in. But even if there is nothing sinful in what we say, it is still better to avoid speaking without a good reason – it is a waste of energy, it is an opportunity to practice the intentional control of our thoughts and actions, and one never knows to what a comment may lead, even something which appears harmless but was said without good reason.
This may be the sort of lesson which we only discover for ourselves as the years have passed, and we have lost the expectation that all our desires and wishes shall be fulfilled in this world. But it is no reason not to learn from those who have started to understand this, to repent it, and to realise that by cutting down how often we speak about other people, we may start to possess our own souls in silence.
This is why I opened by saying that humility commences in our souls. I can put on an act, I can make a point of speaking quietly, with eyes turned down, or using phrases such as “in my humble opinion.” Sometimes these are not just good disguises for pride, but positively hypocritical. If I can come to some genuine humility in my soul, it is always (in my experience) linked with an awareness of the greatness of God. I start to see and feel myself as very small – small but real.
Just as, on Hosanna Sunday, Our Lord entered Jerusalem, so too, we pray that He will enter our souls. And for this, humility is certainly needed. After all, if my heart is filled with pride, there is no room for the Lord to enter. I have to make space. Or to take another analogy, if a long-lost friend is coming to see me, and all I know is the day on which he will come, I make arrangements to ensure I can be at home all day. I sit by the front door. I have an ear out for the sound of footsteps on the drive.
That is something like our position on Hosanna Sunday, except that it is not as if we do not know on which day Our Lord will appear: we know that He is waiting at every single moment to come to us. He only wants us to open our souls to Him; to be prepared, and vigilant. To be humble, to lay down our cloaks, and welcome Him when He comes in humility – not as we expect Him to come, with huge signs, but simply, lowly, riding the colt of an ass.