Palm Sunday

Typically, Palm Sunday has been one of the most popular days for church attendance, and normally no pastor would ever want to be caught with an insufficient supply of palms to satisfy the earnest demand of the eager crowds. Last year, however, we had no congregation. The then prevalent preoccupation with touching things (at that time taken so seriously as a vehicle for spreading covid-19) meant that we dared not even leave the blessed palms on a table for people to pick up and take home. So just a few palms were blessed at our first live-streamed Mass that Sunday and the rest stored in a freezer for hoped-for later distribution or church decoration. (As it happened, when that opportunity came we found that the palms had rotted even in the refrigerator. So last year's order of palms went wasted.)

This year, for the first time in many, I won't be personally blessing any palms, but I do hope at least to receive a piece of palm. Palm Sunday may be about more than getting palms, but Palm Sunday certainly starts with blessing and getting palms, as even the traditional name for the day suggests. (The palms have given the day its typical title at least since Saint Isidore in 7th-century Spain and Saint Bede in 8th-century England.) 

But, personally, my favorite feature of Palm Sunday has always been singing Gloria Laus et Honor during the procession (its original 39 verses composed by Bishop Theodulph of Orleans in 818). It is a fantastic hymn, well worth waiting once a year for. 

In contrast to the exuberance of the procession, the Roman Rite has historically emphasized the memory of Christ's Passion and Death during the Mass, the centerpiece of which was traditionally the proclamation of the Passion According to Saint Matthew. Back in the day, Saint Augustine stressed the importance of the practice and its solemnity (Sermon 218). Of course, back when most people went to Mass on Sundays (especially on Palm Sunday), this was the annual occasion for most people to hear the full Passion story. It still is the most likely occasion for most people ever to hear it, although, of course, now fewer and fewer people attend Sunday Mass. (In the contemporary Pauline liturgy, instead of reading each of the four Passion accounts on its traditional day of Holy Week each year, the three synoptic Passion accounts are rotated on Palm Sunday. So this year the reading will be from the Gospel according to Mark.)

What will remain of Palm Sunday post-pandemic? Even before the pandemic, a novel, rather disturbing trend had appeared - people leaving their palms in the church at the end of Mass. In fact, we had noticed this particular development a couple of years ago and I was all set to crank out some targeted catechesis on the role of sacramentals like palms and reasons to take the blessed palms home. Then the pandemic came and rendered the issue at least temporarily moot.

Another threat to Palm Sunday comes from the increasing (already pre-pandemic) tendency to arrive late at Mass. When a large part of the congregation arrives after the procession, what is the point of the procession? (In retrospect, the post-conciliar liturgy's relocation of the Blessing and Distribution of Ashes from the beginning of Mass to the middle, while liturgically illogical, has proved to be a great pastoral success.) 

It is certainly true that the liturgy, as Vatican II famously said, "is the outstanding means whereby the faithful may express in their lives, and manifest to others, the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church." But if church attendance continues to plummet post-pandemic, what then?

(Photo: Palm Sunday at Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NY)