okaforpeacee

@ladyprowess · 04 Dec 2021

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When is Palm Sunday?

Palm Sunday - Everything about it and why it is celebrated.

Easter is a time of celebration which comes with lots of food and merriment in celebration of the lord Jesus Christ, but before the holiday there is a week called the holy week- seven days of religious activities and significance in the Christian faith and final countdown to Easter. Palm Sunday (also called passion Sunday) is the first day of the holy week and the Sunday before Easter, which marks the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. It is celebrated in different churches with blessings and use of palm(twigs of available leaves or leaves of the date palm) which was also recorded in the bible that it was used to celebrate and welcome Jesus as he entered Jerusalem. They shouted, “Hossana to the son of David”, ” blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord”, “Blessed is the king of Israel”, and other words of praises.

These 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.

Nowadays, palms are blessed and distributed to commentate Palm Sunday and many Christians tie them into a cross shape, and they are gathered, burned and incinerated to create ashes that will be used in Ash Wednesday.

This year 2021 Palm Sunday was celebrated on March 28. The rest of the week’s name is as follows;

• Palm Sunday
• Maundy Thursday(which signifies the last supper)
• Good Friday (commemorates Jesus Crucifixion)
• Holy Saturday (this is believed to be the holy vigil that Jesus followers held outside his tomb)
• Easter Sunday (celebrate the day Jesus rose from the dead).