Celebrating Palm Sunday: 28 March 2010

Palm Sunday Around the World

In Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, the palm crosses distributed are often kept in people’s houses for the year as a symbol of their faith. Although palms are now imported from Spain – which has the largest palm grove in Europe – the scarcity of the plant in the past meant that sometimes pussy willow, yew, or other indigenous trees were substituted.

After Palm Sunday, leftover palms are often burned and used for Ash Wednesday, when ashes are mixed with sacred oil and used to anoint the congregation as a sign of repentance.

Across the world the traditions associated with Palm Sunday vary: in the Eastern Orthodox Church for example, Palm Sunday is called the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem and represents one of the 12 main feasts of the liturgical year; sometimes olive branches and leaves are used instead of palms which, in Malta and Gozo, are taken home and thought to ward off evil; in the Indian Orthodox churches flowers are scattered around the sanctuary as the Gospel describing Jesus’s welcome by the crowd is read; in Spain palm leaves are tied and braided into elaborate shapes, whereas in the Netherlands, bread shaped in the form of a rooster or a cross is decorated with candy.

Processions are held, sometimes incorporating a donkey. In one of the most famous processions, held in the diocese of Goningen-Leeuwarden, a walk with oil lamps takes place the night before in honour of the Sorrowful Mother of Warfhuizen – a statue sculpted by Miguel Bejarano Moreno and a place of unofficial pilgrimage.

Poland holds competitions to build the biggest artificial palm with the highest reaching 30 metres, and in Fiji the children of the Methodist congregation wear white to symbolise innocence or cleanliness.

Palm Sunday: 28 March 2010

Palm Sunday is a day of celebration and solemnity remembering Jesus Christ’s triumphal procession into Jerusalem in the week before his trial and crucifixion. It is a moveable feast that takes place on the Sunday of the Holy Week that precedes Easter, and in 2010 falls on 28th March.

The day is also known as Passion Sunday, Yew Sunday, Branch Sunday or The Sunday of the Passion. It is celebrated in Christian churches all over the world with the distribution of crosses made from palm leaves to the congregation. In some parishes, large palm branches are carried in processions around or outside the church in commemoration of Christ’s arrival in Jerusalem for the Jewish festival of the Passover.

The story mentioned in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, relates how the night before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus dined with Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha at Bethphage, he asked two of his disciples to fetch a donkey from the nearby village. If anyone asked why, they were to say that it was needed by the Lord but would be returned later. The next day as Jesus rode the donkey through the Golden Gate into Jerusalem, crowds thronged the streets and laid palm branches in front of him, saying; “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Blessed is the King of Israel.”

Palm Sunday: Symbols and Traditions

For Jews the palm was traditionally a symbol of triumph and victory, and the leaves were often laid before people thought worthy of honour. The Roman Catholic Church considers palms to be sacramentals or an object that inspires devotion, and thus a means of obtaining grace.

In Eastern tradition the donkey was representative of peace – as opposed to the more warlike properties associated with the horse. Christ’s entry into Jerusalem was seen as the fruition of prophesies made by Zechariah who foretold in the Old Testament; “Rejoice greatly O daughter of Zion! Shout, O Daughter of Jerusalem! Behold your king is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

In the days that followed, Jesus was to be betrayed by Judas, arrested and sent for trial. On Good Friday, the day of his crucifixion, many of the crowd who had welcomed him into the city so excitedly were now baying for his blood.

Because of this, concepts of hypocrisy and betrayal are traditional subjects for services on Palm Sunday when the congregation is asked to think about the strength of their commitment to their own beliefs.

Popular hymns on this day are “All Glory, Laud and Honour” and “Ride on, Ride on in Majesty.”

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