Today is Palm Sunday, so here’s a bit of history about it !
Palm Sunday is a Christian feast falling on the Sunday before Easter that commemorates Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. Palm Sunday marks the first day of Holy Week, the last week before Easter.
In most liturgical churches Palm Sunday is celebrated by the blessing and distribution of palm branches or the branches of other native trees representing the palm branches the crowd scattered in front of Christ as he rode into Jerusalem.
The difficulty of procuring palms in unfavorable climates led to their substitution with branches of native trees, including box, olive, willow, and yew. The Sunday was often named after these substitute trees, as in Yew Sunday, or by the general term Branch Sunday.
For example in France, we use the branches of a very common plant called “buis” and call it “le Dimanche des Rameaux”, rameau being kind of a generic term for branch, but not often used outside of this religious context.
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.
For example, here’s something you could find in a Christian home in France:
The year after, in the period preceding the start of Lent, churches collect these palms, which are then ritually burned on Shrove Tuesday to make the ashes to be used on the following day, Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.
