xjwsforChrist

Hey Char I was wondering, do you receive palm leaves every year?

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To fear me is to love me....

I missed a lot while I was out in the yard this beautiful spring day! But as usual, Char handled the questions well.

The point of the quote from Matthew was that He is present with us, even if His earthly body is with us no more. If we choose to see, to feel, to listen, then we know He is here with us!

Ascension Day really would have been last Thursday, 40 days after Easter. But it is usually celebrated on the following Sunday, since few people the day off from school or work. Next Sunday will be Pentecost. It is all part of the liturgical calendar, following the salvation story in the Gospels.

[quote="YppuplleH"]Hey Char I was wondering, do you receive palm leaves every year?[/quote

Yes, Pup, though that's a terminology we don't quite use here. But yes, we do receive them, I suppose.

Let me explain.

For those who don't know, Palm Sunday is the Sunday before Easter Sunday, and forms the start of Holy Week, the week commemorating the events leading up to that day, but it's more than that. Worldwide, so GL and I will be experiencing exactly the same things thousands of miles apart, the Church and all the faithful will be observing the forty days of Lent, patterning the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness. On Palm Sunday we remember his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, when the people cried Hosanna, and strewed the streets with palm leaves. Here in this country, and I'd be interested to know, GL, if it's the same with you, it's the tradition to re-enact that scene. At the start of the Mass on that day, people leave the church all together, each taking with them a palm cross, a little cross woven from a palm leaf. They walk to a destination and the distance will depend on local circumstances. In our parish the presbytery is not too far away and the whole congregation gathers there in an area before the door. Hundreds of people, so we overflow and fill the road. It's pre-arranged with the Police.

There the ceremony proper starts. The relevant passage from the Gospels is read, prayers are said, and everyone holds the little palm cross high aloft, and the priest, accompanied by an altar server holding a bowl of holy water, sprinkles it over all the crowd and blesses the palm crosses. Then, led by the robed priest and the choir, singing a hymn, carrying their crosses prominently, they process ceremonially back towards and into the church, where the Mass begins.

Those blessed crosses are taken home, usually placed prominently on a wall or mantelpiece or somewhere, and remain for nearly a year until the beginning of the following Lent, on Ash Wednesday, when the ashes used to mark the foreheads of the people are ashes from the burned palms of the previous year.

That's why I hesitated at the term "receive", Pup. It's so much more than receiving.

True I was asking as a laypuppy

Was curious about the availability of palm leaves in your area due to climate.

Wasn't sure if the ritual was international or not. I am a bit bitter that you got to see Star Trek before me though.

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To fear me is to love me....

What we do is nearly the same. The biggest difference is that our palms are single leafs, not formed into the cross. Our procession is shorter because of uncertain weather at that time of year, and needing permits to have a procession down the street for every mass on Palm Sunday (we have four every Sunday). Yes, it is done everywhere on the same day.

Yes, GL, I meant to say that ours is weather-dependent too. If it rains we just process round the church. This year the rain held off, but it was very cold!

Our palms are single-leaf too, one long leaf formed into a cross. I think they are made either in the Holy Land or by contemplative (silent) nuns from leaves from the Holy Land.

Yes, Pup, bitter you may be, but I saw Star Trek: Into Darkness on Saturday!

*jubilant grin*

What a nice Celebration, the best out of all of them, Ascension Day. Joyful after the sad celebration of his death even though his death was good news for mankind.

I wish I had not been brought up a JW, we had no special days but the Memorial and the anniversary of peoples marriage and that was subdued. Celebrations help us reflect on the subject of the celebration for a time but the WT religion likes to take the joy out of life it seems.

Question, I don't know my bible that well, what was Christ doing for the 40 days before he ascended, was he asleep in death, I seem to recall he was not.?

I sadly feel no prescence of a God or Christ or anything invisible, I hear no voice in my head and never have.

No, Zoe, don't forget, after the crucifixion, he rose from the dead on the third day! Easter Sunday!

Then for the next forty days, those were the times when he appeared almost randomly, it might seem, to the apostles and disciples, first to Mary and the women, and then variously to different ones, to two disciples by the shore of Galilee, Thomas, who doubted, and Jesus invited him to put his hand in his side, to all the disciples who recognised him when he broke the bread...remember?...and so on.

Of course, silly me, I have forgotten so much. I guess he became a spirit who could materialize after the 3 days but he stayed in our realm. Fascinating. I guess the ascension thing kind of got me mixed up or my MS is affecting my cognitive abilities lol. I think the JW religion downplays the ascension, I don't remember that coming up a lot. I have never read the bible since I left the religon, I have never looked into another religion or even considered God or Christ (Post JW religon) until recently.

The thing is, that's exactlly what JW's say he became, a spirit creature.

Not at all. He wasn't a spirit creature. Jesus Christ, or just Christ for those that don't like the full name; He is, was, the Son of God.

I guess spirit creature is the wrong terminology then What I meant was he wasn't human anymore in any sense.??

Good morning Zoe..

I would say he was still human in that his flesh and blood resembled ours and not that of an animal still.
But he no longer had the flesh he inherited from his mother Mary that had sin in it and the sins of all those he took in when he healed/ cured them of death and disease.

That body died/ was impaled and put to death. But because death had no hold on him because he was given the keys to " death and hades " " and given all power and authority in heaven and on earth".... HE ROSE!

He rose and walked the earth with a body of flesh ( sinless) and blood ( Holy Spirit) that could now transcend the physical realm and not be " stuck in it"
This accounts for why on occasion that they were not able to identify who he was until " he spoke with them" and revealed himself to them.

But for those that had faith in him during this time, the 40 days, he appeared and strengthened and reassured his disciples that what he had been telling them had been fulfilled.

Just a thought to add
Love Justmom

1 Corinthians 15 helps us too:

35 But some one will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" 36 You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39 For not all flesh is alike, but there is one kind for men, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are celestial bodies and there are terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. 42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. 50 I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

Loz x

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"This is my son. LISTEN to Him!"

So then it says spiritual body, which I translate to mean Christ became a spirit body, or is that different than spirtual body.

1 Corinthians 15:45 - "the last Adam [Christ] became a life-giving spirit."