This pairing is one of the most rhetorically effective contrasts in the Passional. Both Jesus and the pope are mounted and head in opposite directions away from the central spine of the book. Jesus enters the portal of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, riding modestly on an ass and followed by his apostles on foot. His hand offers a blessing gesture, and the disciples remain united and isolated behind him, almost huddled together as a budding religious community. Behind them the background is shown as the same kind of rocky wilderness that has served as a site of spiritual retreat throughout the series. The texts appropriately underscore the humility of the event and the simple mount of a donkey from both Matthew 21:5 and also John 12:15.