You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith. poem Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem.

A reading from the Holy Gospel, according to John.

On the next day, the large crowd who had come to the feast when they had heard that

Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,

took the branches of palm trees, and went out to meet him, and began to shout,

Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Look at the image of Palm Sunday. Imagine that you are one of the people in the crowd. You stand in the sun watching this man everyone is so excited about, riding into

Jerusalem on top of a donkey. Look at the palms. The people around you

are swaying with the poems. It seems almost as if you were in a royal court and the servants

are standing around fanning the king. And then you think, perhaps this is what heaven is like, with the fluttering

of angel wings standing around the throne of God. The road in front of Jesus as he rides into town

on top of the donkey is dusty and dirty. Suddenly, you can't stand the idea of this donkey placing his feet onto the ground.

You wish you could spread out a royal carpet for this man, this man you've heard about.

This man that has done so many miracles that has healed people and raised them from the dead,

and yet is so mysterious. You take off your scarf and you put it on the road in front of

Jesus. Look around the crowd and see the other people's faces. They are smiling. They are shouting

with joy. Their faces are red and some of them are crying as they look at Jesus.

They believe something about him. They believe that he is God. Finally, look at the face of Jesus.

You're shocked to see that he is looking directly at you. He doesn't seem like a powerful, prideful king. He keeps looking at

you. He looks at you as if he knows you. He knows what you've done, what you haven't done. He knows

your name. And then he smiles at you, like a friend, like a brother.

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