What does ‘hosanna’ mean today?

Source: Greenpeace Statement –

I grew up hearing the word hosanna carried through church halls and school masses, spoken with a sense of reverence that felt both communal and contained. It was a word of praise, offered upward, shaped by ritual and repetition. At the time, it seemed complete in itself.

That understanding shifted recently, while I was attending a Palm Sunday Mass. As the faithful raised palm fronds and echoed a cry repeated across generations, Hosanna Filio David, the word took on a different weight. In his homily, the priest posed a question: “What is the nature of our hosanna?” It was a simple question, but it invited reflection beyond the ritual and the familiar cadence of the word. It was also there that I learned, or perhaps finally registered, that hosanna means “save us,” or more urgently, “save us now.”

My relationship with the church has become more distant through the years, shaped by questions and a different way of seeing the world. Yet some stories remain, not as doctrine, but as moral reference points. One of them is this: that Jesus consistently aligned himself with those at the margins. The poor, the excluded, the communities whose suffering was often overlooked. He moved toward them, even when it was contested.

Holy Week invites reflection, and I return to that word with a different lens. Because hosanna is not simply praise. At its root, it is a plea. A call that once meant “save us now,” spoken by people who knew what it was to live under pressure, to long for relief that could not wait.

What does hosanna mean in a world marked by deepening crises?

Faith should not be blind; rather, it should point us where to look. Communities continue to face the consequences of environmental degradation, often with the least resources to respond. Floods become more severe, heat more unforgiving, and livelihoods more precarious. Waste systems strain under the weight of overproduction, and when they fail, it is communities that pay the price. At the same time, conflict and war intensify these vulnerabilities. Displacement and rising costs further narrow the space for survival, especially for those already living on the edge.

In this context, hosanna begins to sound less like a distant refrain and more like something urgent—even present. It echoes in communities calling for clean water, for safe homes, for the right to live without the constant threat of disaster, and for justice. It is heard in places where people are already asking—in different words—to be saved.

If the figure at the center of these stories chose to be alongside the oppressed, then echoing that call today requires more than remembrance. It asks for attentiveness to the unequal burdens carried by communities, and to the systems that reinforce these conditions. It calls for a willingness to listen, especially when voices come from places that are often ignored.

So the question becomes personal. What is our nature of hosanna?

Is it something we speak, or something we respond to? Does it remain within the safety of reflection, or does it move us toward those who are already calling out?

Holy Week offers space for contemplation and clarity. It allows us to consider the kind of response that must follow belief. Perhaps hosanna is not only a word we offer upward, but also a cry we are meant to hear and a call we are meant to answer. 

Because if hosanna once meant “save us now,” then this imploration does not remain in the past. The cry reverberates into the present.

Is the call to “save us now” answered by changing hearts alone or by confronting the conditions that make people cry out in the first place?

Perhaps it begins there. To confront these conditions can be as direct as standing with communities already resisting harm or as quiet as refusing the narratives that keep accountability in the wrong places. It can mean paying attention to who profits from our planet’s destruction and who carries the burden. It can mean supporting movements of justice and ending greed in all its forms.

And so when hosanna is spoken today, whose voice do we recognize in it? And what does it ask of us now?

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Eunille Santos is part of the communications team of Greenpeace Philippines. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in development communication at the University of the Philippines Los Baños.