GENERAL KNOWLEDGE ON PALM SUNDAY II

 

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE ON PALM SUNDAY II

1. BRIEF HISTORY OF PALM SUNDAY

Palm Sunday, also called Passion Sunday, in the Christian tradition, is the first day of Holy Week and the Sunday before Easter, commemorating the triumphant entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem. It is associated in many churches with the blessing and procession of palms (leaves of the date palm or twigs from locally available trees).  

The oldest known account of a Palm Sunday service dates back to about 380 A.D. It reveals the palm procession to be the oldest custom associated with the day. According to Egeria, a late fourth-century pilgrim to the Holy Land, Jerusalem Christians celebrated Palm Sunday with a procession that led from the Mount of Olives into the city. They gathered on the Mount of Olives around five in the afternoon to listen to a reading from one of the Gospel accounts of the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem. Then the bishop, representing Jesus Christ, led them down the hill into the city. Egeria notes that many in the crowd carried palm or olive branches. Though the account by Egeria provides us with the earliest description of a Palm Sunday service, some scholars suspect that earlier celebrations took place in the Christian communities of Alexandria, Egypt, and Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), Turkey. They suspect that when Christians from these cities made pilgrimages to the Holy Land, they introduced these observances to the Jerusalem community, which later adopted them. The most striking element of these early observances was the palm procession. 

The Palm Sunday procession spread to western Europe in the early Middle Ages. The procession, as well as the ceremonial blessing of palm branches at the altar appeared in Spain sometime between the 5th and 7th centuries. Similar rites were probably adopted in Rome sometime around the eighth century. 

In addition to the palm procession, the blessing of the palms constitutes another distinctive feature of Palm Sunday religious services.  In the West the earliest evidence of the ceremonies is found in the Bobbio Sacramentary (8th century). During the Middle Ages the ceremony for the blessing of the palms was elaborate: the procession began in one church, went to a church in which the palms were blessed, and returned to the church in which the procession had originated for the singing of the liturgy. The principal feature of the liturgy that followed the procession was the chanting by three deacons of the account of the Passion of Christ (Matthew 26:3627:54). Musical settings for the crowd parts were sometimes sung by the choir. After reforms of the Roman Catholic liturgies in 1955 and 1969, the ceremonies were somewhat simplified in order to emphasize the suffering and death of Christ.

The day is now called officially Passion Sunday. The liturgy begins with a blessing and procession of palms, but prime attention is given to a lengthy reading of the Passion, with parts taken by the priest, lectors, and congregation. 

The palm procession, a reenactment of the joyous welcome given to Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem, constitutes one of the day's oldest customs. It dates back to ancient times. The palm branch came to represent both the joy and triumph of this occasion and thus became a symbol of the holiday. 

The procession at Mass with the palms was a public display of homage and loyalty to Christ our King and Redeemer. Christ is the King of our home, so we should incorporate the blessed palms and a family prayer service as part of this day. 

If Palm trees are not readily available in some vicinity, there are other plants like olive branches, box, yew, spruce, willows and pussy-willows that can blessed and used the same way as palms for Passion Sunday. 

2. WHAT IS THIS DAY CALLED?

The day is called both Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday. The first name comes from the fact that it commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when the crowd had palm branches (John 12:13).

The second name comes from the fact that the narrative of the Passion is read on this Sunday (it otherwise wouldn't be read on a Sunday, since the next Sunday is about the Resurrection). According to the main document on the celebration of the feasts connected with Easter, Paschales Solemnitatis: Holy Week begins on Passion (or Palm) Sunday which joins the foretelling of the regal triumph of Christ Jesus and the proclamation of the passion. The connection between both aspects of the Paschal Mystery should be shown and explained in the celebration and catechesis of this day.

3. ARE WE ONLY SUPPOSED TO USE PALMS? WHAT IF YOU DON'T HAVE PALMS WHERE YOU LIVE?

It is not necessary that palm branches be used in the procession. Other forms of greenery can also be used. According to the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: The procession, commemorating Christ's messianic entry into Jerusalem, is joyous and popular in character. The faithful usually keep palm or olive branches, or other greenery which have been blessed on Palm Sunday in their homes or in their work places.

4. WHAT WAS JESUS DOING AT THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY?

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI explains: Jesus claims the right of kings, known throughout antiquity, to requisition modes of transport. The use of an animal on which no one had yet sat is a further pointer to the right of kings. Most striking, though, are the Old Testament allusions that give a deeper meaning to the whole episode. . . . For now let us note this: Jesus is indeed making a royal claim. He wants his path and his action to be understood in terms of Old Testament promises that are fulfilled in his person. . . . At the same time, through this anchoring of the text in Zechariah 9:9, a Zealot exegesis of the kingdom is excluded: Jesus is not building on violence; he is not instigating a military revolt against Rome. His power is of another kind: it is in Gods poverty, Gods peace, that he identifies the only power that can redeem [Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 2].

5. WHAT DOES THE REACTION OF THE CROWD SHOW?

It shows that they recognized him as their messianic king. Benedict XVI notes: The spreading out of garments likewise belongs to the tradition of Israelite kingship (cf. 2 Kings 9:13). What the disciples do is a gesture of enthronement in the tradition of the Davidic kingship, and it points to the Messianic hope that grew out of the Davidic tradition. The pilgrims who came to Jerusalem with Jesus are caught up in the disciples enthusiasm. They now spread their garments on the street along which Jesus passes. They pluck branches from the trees and cry out verses from Psalm 118, words of blessing from Israels pilgrim liturgy, which on their lips become a Messianic proclamation: Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming! Hosanna in the highest! (Mk 11:910; cf. Ps 118:26).

6. WHAT DOES THE WORD HOSANNA MEAN?

Benedict XVI explains: Originally this was a word of urgent supplication, meaning something like: Come to our aid! The priests would repeat it in a monotone on the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles, while processing seven times around the altar of sacrifice, as an urgent prayer for rain. But as the Feast of Tabernacles gradually changed from a feast of petition into one of praise, so too the cry for help turned more and more into a shout of jubilation. By the time of Jesus, the word had also acquired Messianic overtones. In the Hosanna acclamation, then, we find an expression of the complex emotions of the pilgrims accompanying Jesus and of his disciples: joyful praise of God at the moment of the processional entry, hope that the hour of the Messiah had arrived, and at the same time a prayer that the Davidic kingship and hence Gods kingship over Israel would be reestablished.

7. IS THE SAME CROWD THAT CHEERED JESUS ARRIVAL THE ONE THAT DEMANDED HIS CRUCIFIXION JUST A FEW DAYS LATER?

Benedict XVI argues that it was not: All three Synoptic Gospels, as well as Saint John, make it very clear that the scene of Messianic homage to Jesus was played out on his entry into the city and that those taking part were not the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but the crowds who accompanied Jesus and entered the Holy City with him. This point is made most clearly in Matthews account through the passage immediately following the Hosanna to Jesus, Son of David: When he entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying: Who is this? And the crowds said: This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee (Mt 21:1011). . . .People had heard of the prophet from Nazareth, but he did not appear to have any importance for Jerusalem, and the people there did not know him. The crowd that paid homage to Jesus at the gateway to the city was not the same crowd that later demanded his crucifixion.

© Rev Fr Utazi Prince Marie Benignus 

Updated March 26 2023