Palm Sunday, also called Passion Sunday, in the Christian tradition is a moveable Sunday, the first day of the Holy Week and the Sunday before the great Feast Easter, commemorating Jesus' triumphal entry. It is associated in many churches with the blessing and procession of palms (leaves of the olive trees, date palm, coconut palm, or twigs from locally available trees). Palm Sunday is celebrated on Sunday, March 28, 2021.
Palm Sunday's special ceremonies were taking place toward the end of the 4th century in Jerusalem and are described in the travelogue Peregrinatio Etheriae (The Pilgrimage of Etheria). 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 26:36–27:54). 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 palms are often taken home by the members of the congregation to serve as sacramentals (sacred signs of the sacraments), and some of them are burned the following year to serve as the ashes for Ash Wednesday. Many churches of mainstream Christian denominations , including the Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Anglican, Moravian and Reformed traditions, distribute palm branches to their congregations during their Palm Sunday liturgies. Christians take these palms, which are often blessed by clergy, to their homes where they hang them alongside Christian art (especially crosses and crucifixes) or keep them in their Bibles or devotionals. In the Byzantine liturgy the Eucharist on Palm Sunday is followed by a procession in which the priest carries the icon representing the events being commemorated. In the Anglican churches some of the traditional ceremonies were revived in the 19th century. The majority of Protestant churches, while celebrating the day without ritual ceremonies, give palms increasing prominence. In the following video👇Hosanna ( meaning save or rescue) written by Debbie and Michael Smith, is sung by The Maranatha Singers. The Holy Week may help us to become holy and come closer to our creator and fellow human beings. Pratap Naik sj
