Here for your reflection is Mary Oliver, musing on that significant event as recorded in Matthew -- the only one of the gospels, as Grant told us, that refers to the animal ridden as a donkey...
The Poet Muses About the Donkey
On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.
How horses, turned out to the meadow,
leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
clatter away, splashed with sunlight!
But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.
Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.
I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.
-- Mary Oliver, Devotions: Selected Poems...Penguin Press, New York, 2017
Donkey or colt, Jesus entry into Jerusalem for the last time, at the Feast of the Passover, is labelled a "Triumphal Entry" in assorted current Biblical translations, for as it is recounted, the throngs of people ostensibly on their way to the Temple to mark the sacred release of the Israelite people from Egypt, cast their robes and tree (likely palm) branches before Him and chanting,
Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!
Hosanna in the Highest!
...a portion of which we include in the Sanctus, sung each time we gather for the Eucharist.
For your listening...here is a particularly joyous version of that sacred hymn, arranged by Canadian singer-song-writer, Steve Bell,
and performed with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra:
May your Holy Week be blessed.
See you next Sunday!
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