Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday is the final Sunday of the Lenten Season, the beginning of Holy Week, and commemorates the triumphant arrival of Christ in Jerusalem, days before he was crucified. Palm Sunday is known as such because the faithful will often receive palm branches which they use to participate in the reenactment of Christ’s arrival in Jerusalem. In the Gospels, Jesus entered Jerusalem riding a young donkey, and to the lavish praise of the townspeople who threw clothes, or palms or small branches, in front of him as a sign of homage. This was a customary practice for people of great respect.
Palm branches are widely recognized symbol of peace and victory, hence their preferred use on Palm Sunday. The use of a donkey instead of a horse is highly symbolic, it represents the humble arrival of someone in peace, as opposed to arriving on a steed in war. A week later, Christ would rise from the dead on the first Easter.
During Palm Sunday Mass, palms are distributed to parishioners who carry them in a ritual procession into church. The palms are blessed, and many people will fashion them into small crosses or other items of personal devotion. The extra palm will be burned to create ashes for next year’s Ash Wednesday celebration. The colors of the Mass on Palm Sunday are red and white, symbolizing the redemption in blood that Christ paid for the world.
As we begin this holiest week of the Church year let us take some time to pray, reflect and be present to each of the days of Holy Week.