Palm Sunday . . .

Yes, it's here at last, Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week; that time beloved of small boys (and girls) who devote much of their time during Mass to fashioning their palms into small swords.

Oh, I'm sorry, did I say 'swords'? Of course I meant 'crosses' but something about the way the children attack their siblings sitting alongside them with such gusto with their palm 'crosses' makes me think that maybe I was correct in my first assumption!

Brotherly love aside, I always find the Palm Sunday liturgy very moving. We don't have a real live donkey in our procession but we do process around outside the church which stands on a busy main road.

There aren't many pedestrians around to stop and stare but I'm surprised there aren't any car accidents in the area on the morning of Palm Sunday as I'm sure I've seen a few passing motorists slow down to try and see 'what those strange Catholics are up to now'.

The other highlight of the liturgy must be the reading of the Passion.

Like many other churches, in our parish the Passion is read with many of the congregation taking the parts of the various people mentioned in the Gospel reading.

Apart from the narrator, and the part of Christ spoken by the celebrant, the other 'voices' come from the body of the church. For me this makes it an even more emotional experience. When we hear more than 200 people in the congregation all proclaiming 'Let him be crucified!' it is very powerful indeed.

'Hail, Son of David, our king and redeemer of the world! The prophets foretold that you would come and save us.'

Palm Sunday . . .

I love this picture and the way we can see through the Palm to the Crucifixion.

The symbolism is obvious but it is still a very powerful picture, I think.

We have many examples in modern day history where we can see public opinion turn from a cheering crowd to a baying mob. The power of the group can be very frightening and it can change so quickly just as the cheering crowd which welcomed Our Lord into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday turned, in a matter of a few days, to a bloodthirsty mob demanding the death of that same Jesus.

We had a good crowd at Mass this morning. We managed to process outside around the church and the rain kept away. Our procession involves walking along the road in front of the church and despite the recent furore in the press we suffered no ill affects. In fact it was just like any other Palm Sunday. Cars drove past and totally ignored us.

In our parish we are given palms which are more or less in their natural state. In other words they are leaves not crosses.

As a youngster, we used to meet together a few days before Palm Sunday to fold the palm leaves into palm crosses. In my Anglican parish, I think as many bodies as possible were roped in to help with this - Mothers' groups, youth groups, Confirmation groups etc.

I looked through lots of videos to try and find one that explained clearly how to do this and this is the best I could find that showed the crosses as we used to make them. (There is no sound, it's not your speakers playing up!)

Waiting ...

On a serious note, I'm beginning to feel the anticipation of Holy Week today. It's a strange feeling, it's not quite Holy Week but the tone of Lent seems to have changed. I have become more aware every day this week of the growing build up to Christ's Passion. I'm lucky that I'm able to get to Mass most days and for some reason I've felt this 'build-up' in the readings even more than usual this year.

Tomorrow we'll have our Palm Sunday procession around the church and then just a few more days until we celebrate the Triduum. I know our neighbours find it strange that we seem to practically 'live' at church in between Holy Thursday evening and Easter Sunday morning.

Ever since the children were quite small, we've managed to join in most of the Easter events in our parish, beginning with the Mass of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday with the Washing of Feet and watching at the altar of repose until midnight. In the early days, we'd take turns to 'watch' whilst the other stayed at home and babysat.

On Good Friday we join in a local ecumenical Walk of Witness along our High Street following a large cross and stopping at 'Stations' along the way. We've done this since the boys were tiny and we walked with the buggy alongside other families. Then home for a hot cross bun (that's lunch!) and back to church in the afternoon for Veneration of the Cross.

The Easter Vigil is of course the climax and we often have a little parish celebration afterwards with those newly received into the Church.