Palm Sunday is perhaps one of the liturgical highlights of the Christian year. How many of us have fond memories of the Procession: perhaps the hymn, All glory, laud and honor and, for us Brits, the folding of lengths of palm into neat little crosses. The traditions in England were deep – and were cherished – because they seemed to survive, in part, the turmoil of the Sixteenth Century and its iconoclastic attack on sacred ritual.

The hymn is not new – All glory is merely a translation of an older, Ninth Century processional hymn, Gloria laus, composed by the Spanish bishop, Theodulf of Orléans – which we will sing today; but the palm crosses are a relative novelty. In England palms are (unsurprisingly) not native – and in the accounts of the Triumphal Entry, only St. John tells us that palm branches were carried. St. Matthew does not say that the bough cut and strewn before the Lord were palm at all. Indeed, he seems to refer to the liturgical law of Leviticus 23:40 which specifies fruit, palm branches, as well as boughs from leafy trees and willow.

In England, Palm Sunday was one of the most important Processions of the year, particularly before the institution of Corpus Christi in AD 1264. It may surprise you to learn that it was a Blessed Sacrament Procession of its own: in fact, there were two Processions: after the boughs were blessed at the Altar (in England, yew, box and willow were used, as well as any flowering branches, such as hawthorn) the people departed with the priest to the 1^st Station at the NE corner of the churchyard (where the railroad crossing was, in our case) by a circuitous route.

A second, secret Blessed Sacrament Procession then followed by a shorter way, and the first dramatic moment was the meeting of the Blessed Sacrament in the open air, when the priest (and presumably everyone else) fell and kissed the ground before the Lord.

The two Processions then joined up to make two more Stations outside (one at an elaborate elevated stone Cross, called the Palm Cross; the other at the West doors) before entering the Church for the 4^th Station at the Great Rood, which was unveiled, for Ave Rex noster: Hail, our king!

Our Procession today is significantly shorter! But nonetheless, it is the closest we get in the Liturgy to physical re-enactment of a Bible story – perhaps that is why it resonates so well with us. Holy Mass, after all, is not a re-enactment of the Last Supper (if it were, women would have to be excluded, only the priest would receive Communion, the Chalice would be consecrated after Mass was over, and everything would have to be done on a Thursday evening, not a Sunday morning) but instead is a deeper, more profound participation in the mystery of the Cross and Resurrection combined.

Still, our use of forsythia for ‘palms’ is a re-awakening of deep wisdom. Your palms are blessed, which means you must not throw them away. Why not make a flower arrangement with them and watch them continue to bloom and leaf over Eastertide? Or perhaps you might dry them out and place them behind a favorite holy image in your home. Either way, we will need them next year – because the palms of our Hosanna today will become the ashes of our future contrition. Happy Passiontide.