It is a sobering reality to know that last year’s palm branches are this year’s ashes. My Catholic friends know this, of course – that the ashes dispensed on Ash Wednesday at the beginning of Lent are created from burning the palm branches from the previous Palm Sunday. Palm branches…into ashes. Triumph…into tragedy. Life…into death. It seems to me that we miss something when we think of Palm Sunday – with all its loud Hosanna’s! accompanying Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem – as anything resembling a triumph. The disciples, of course, thought that Jesus was coming to overthrow the Roman government [READ MORE]