This Sunday marks the beginning of the climax of the Christian year, with Palm Sunday, the festival that recalls for Christians the triumphant entry of Christ into Jerusalem.
As is well known, this also inaugurates Holy Week, the time in which the most famous events of Jesus’ life are recalled, the Last Supper, the betrayal and trial before the Sanhedrin, the handing of Jesus over to Pilate, the crucifixion and, of course, Easter Sunday, which recalls the Christian day of the Resurrection.
It was a busy week for Jesus and is not an easy one for the modern faithful.
Historians believe that the Christians in the city of Jerusalem liked to reenact the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem by processions and the waving of palm branches on the Sunday before Easter. This certainly recalled the palms which Scripture tells us were strewn across the roads where Jesus rode at his entry to the holy city.
Elsewhere in Eastern churches we know that people would wear or carry palms or olive branches to church, but there were no other known rituals associated with the day.
The celebrations of the Roman era were deeply influenced by the customs of the day, which regarded palms as a sign of victory. When a conquering Roman general was given a Triumph by the Roman Empire, he wore a toga emblazoned with the image of palms, because these represented victory.
It is in a similar artistic image that the triumphant Christian martyrs in heaven in the Book of Revelation are depicted wearing white robes and holding palms in their hands as they stand before the throne of God. (Revelation 7:9)
When Christianity spread outside of the Mediterranean basin, sadly, palms were no longer available, but the devout used the branches of the pussy willow tree, a custom that is still used in eastern European churches, such as in Russia, to this very day.
The earliest known formal celebration of Palm Sunday as a formal liturgy appears in a medieval Sacramentary, or ritual book, called the Bobbio Missal which was assembled in the eighth century A.D. Bobbio was a monastery in northern Italy and therefore at the political crossroads between the powerful Frankish kingdom and the church authorities in Rome, and so their influence spread both north and south.
Not long after the composition of the Bobbio Missal, the celebration spread to Rome. There, the pope would celebrate a Mass in one of the churches outside the city, and then would lead a formal procession into the city walls and wind up at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the ancient cathedral of the Diocese of Rome, where he would celebrate a second Mass.
But of course, once the popes had adopted this colorful public ritual, similar ones soon spread across the medieval church.
A common medieval commemoration of Palm Sunday would often be a formal procession, in which people would appear outside their cathedral with branches, which the priests would ritually bless with holy water. A procession around and then into the church would follow, often with either a crucifix or a wooden statue of Christ mounted on a donkey.
As Eucharistic devotion became increasingly common, the blessed sacrament would often be carried in procession as well, and sometimes in the place of the wooden image of Jesus on the donkey. The customary hymn was “Gloria, laus et honor” which is still extremely popular in many churches, and one well-known English translation goes “Glory, laud, and honor,/to Christ our savior king/to you in glad hosannas/inspired children sing.”
A common medieval custom, which has lapsed in the West, but is common elsewhere in the world, was the casting of flowers and petals before the religious procession.
Today a host of customs surrounds the observance of Palm Sunday. In Southern California, where palm branches are very common, it is almost compulsory to have palm branches in many congregations, either as decorations, pinned to the wall, or folded into little crosses.
Missionary societies make a good sum to support their efforts by selling boxes of thousands of folded palm crosses to American congregations where palms do not grow on the street corners.
A few years ago, I got a telephone call from one of my priest friends, whom it is best even now not to name, who was in a complete panic because his parish had run out of palms and there was still one more Mass to go, and could I sneak an extra box in? I was tempted to charge him a pretty penny for the contraband palms but decided to be gracious instead. That said, one day I will call in the favor.
A variety of Palm Sunday customs exist across the world. In Italy, they still decorate special cakes for Palm Sunday with little olive twigs. On the island of Malta, olive branches are ritually blessed, and olive trees are blessed because Jesus prayed in the Garden of Olives on the night he was betrayed.
In Poland, artificial palm trees are made and flowers and blessed. Among the Christians of India it is flower petals that are most important, and these are thrown about reverently in the rituals of the churches. Indian Christians often place flowers before the altar as a special offering, and so this is not uncommon, perhaps because flowers are historically used in Hindu rituals as well and so it makes sense to offer them to the Christian God as well.
Where I grew up it was common to takes one’s palms home after church on Palm Sunday and affix them to a cross or crucifix where they would remain for the rest of the year, but I have not seen that very commonly in California.
Palm Sunday is by no means the only holy day at this time of year. Of course it is also Passover, which will begin at sunset on Monday. For our Sikh friends, it is Baisakhi New Year on that same day. For the Jain, this Sunday is Mahavir Jayanti, and for many Hindus, Tuesday is Hanuman Jayanti.
Spring in general and the full moon is a serious time for the faithful in many traditions. And by the way, if I may make a friendly reminder to the Christian clergy: Buy your palms early next year, because Palm Sunday in 2015 falls on March 29.
Gregory Elder, a Redlands resident, is a professor of history and humanities at Moreno Valley College and a Roman Catholic priest. Write to him at Professing Faith, P.O. Box 8102, Redlands, CA 92375-1302, email him at firstname.lastname@example.org or follow him on Twitter at Fatherelder.