Palm
Branches
Jump to:
How
to make palm crosses to tuck into holy picture frames
Palms
are sacramentals of the Church distributed to the faithful on Palm Sunday
(the Sunday before Easter). Their purpose is to remind us of the triumphal
entry of our Savior into Jerusalem when a great crowd met Him, strewing
palm branches on the street before Him.
Carrying
palms in procession goes way back into the Old Testament, where it was
not only approved but commanded by God at the very foundation of the
Old Testament religion. In the fall of the year, after the harvest,
when the people gathered for the Feast of Tabernacles God said in Leviticus
23:40:
On the first day you shall gather foliage from
majestic trees, branches of palms and boughs of myrtles and of valley
poplars, and then for a week you shall make merry before the LORD,
your God.
Again we read of palms in the II
Machabees 10:6-8:
The
Jews celebrated joyfully for eight days as on the feast of Booths,
remembering how, a little while before, they had spent the feast of
Booths living like wild animals in caves on the mountains. Carrying
rods entwined with leaves, green branches and palms, they sang hymns
of grateful praise to him who had brought about the purification of
his own Place. By public edict and decree they prescribed that the
whole Jewish nation should celebrate these days every year.
And
in the 7th chapter of the Apocalypse, we see that those who were "sealed"
are seen by John carrying palms:
Revelation
7:9-10:
After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could
count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before
the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm
branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation
comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb."
The palms are blessed before the High Mass on Palm Sunday. Vested in
red cope and standing at the Epistle side of the Altar, the priest recites
a short prayer, and then reads a lesson from the book of Exodus which
tells of the children of Israel coming to Elim on their way to the Promised
Land, where they found a fountain and seventy palm trees. It was at
Elim that God sent them manna.
After
a few verses from the New Testament, the priest reads the story of Christ's
triumphal entry into Jerusalem the Sunday before His death, and about
how the people put palms in the Savior's path and sang hosannas because,
ironically, they expected a temporal victory by the One they thought
would be the great military leader who would conquer the Romans..
Then
we pray, begging God that we may in the end go meet Christ, that we
may enter with Him into the eternal Jerusalem. The following preface
and prayers ask God to bless the palms, that they may be sanctified
and may be a means of grace and divine protection to those who carry
them and treasure them with faith.
The
palms may be distributed to the people at the Communion rail (most traditional)
or by altar boys or ushers who give them to the congregation in their
pews. The priest will press the palm against your lips so you can kiss
it. Scripture and prayers follow, and then a procession of clergy and
servers through the church or outside around the church.
These
same palm branches are saved and burned the next year to make the ashes
for the next Ash Wednesday -- the palms, which symbolize triumph, and
the ashes, which sympbolize death and penitence, forming a great symbolic
connection between suffering and victory.
The
branches given to the faithful are held in the hand at the singing or
reading of the Passion and the Gospel during the Mass, but when Mass
is finished we take them home and hang them over crucifixes or holy
pictures (I don't know how universal this is, but an Italian custom
is to break off a piece of the palm and, while praying for relief, burn
it in times of great storms or natural disasters). Another custom is
to shape the palm into Crosses before hanging them (see below). A piece
should also be placed with one's sick call set.
The
next year, when we get new palms, the old palms are burned and their
ashes buried.
How
to make palm crosses to tuck into holy picture frames
- Take
a palm that is about 2 feet long and 1/2" wide (if it tapers at the
top, this is good!).
- Hold
the palm upright, so the tapered end points toward the ceiling. Then
bend the top end down and toward you so that the bend is about 5 or
6 inches from the bottom of the palm.
- About
a third of the way from the bend you just made, twist the section
you've pulled down to the right, forming a right angle.
- About
an inch or inch and a half away from the "stem" of the cross, bend
this arm of the palm back behind the palm so that it is now facing
to your left. Make the bend at a good length to form the right arm
of the Cross.
- Folding
that same section at a point that equals the length on the right side,
bend it on the left side and bring the end forward over what is now
the front of the cross.
- From
the very center of the Cross, fold that arm up and to the upper right
(in a "northeast" direction) so that it can wrap around where the
upright post of the Cross and the right arm intersect.
- Fold
this down and to the left behind the Cross, and then fold it toward
the right so that it is parallel and under the transverse arms of
the Cross.
- Bring
it up behind the Cross again, this time folding it up toward the "northwest"
direction.
- Tuck
the tapered end into the transverse section you made in step 7.
- Turn
the Cross over; this side will be the front. Trim the tapered end
if necessary, remembering that the palm is a sacramental and any part
you trim away should be kept and respected as a sacramental! Use that
piece for burning during storms.
Written by Tracy
Tucciarone López
Return
to top
