Holy Week, Part I: Palm Sunday

"It is ourselves that we must spread under Christ's feet,
not coats or lifeless branches or shoots of trees, matter which wastes away and delights the eye only for a few brief hours.
But we have clothed ourselves with Christ's grace,
with the whole Christ for as many of you as were baptized
into Christ have put on Christ so let us spread ourselves
like coats under his feet." Andrew of Crete, 8th century

In a vigil of prayer which lasted through the night on Holy Saturday until dawn on Easter morning, the early Christians celebrated as one great feast the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ. "On the Friday and on the Sabbath fast wholly, and taste nothing," wrote a 3rd-century Syrian Christian. "You shall come together and watch and keep vigil all the night with prayers and intercessions, and with reading of the Prophets, and with the Gospel and with Psalms" until the third hour in the night after the Sabbath; and then break your fasts". And then offer your oblations; and thereafter eat and make good cheer, and rejoice and be glad, because the earnest of our resurrection, Christ, is risen. And this shall be a law to you forever, to the end of the world."

One night! For the early Christians, that one night had many layers of meaning. The Gospels tell us that Jesus" crucifixion and resurrection took place in the context of the Passover, the most important celebration in the Jewish calendar. Passover marked the night when the angel of God destroyed the firstborn of the Egyptians, freeing the Hebrew people from their long slavery. And according to Jewish tradition, the very day of the Passover was also the anniversary of the day on which God had created Adam. It was also the anniversary of the day on which God called Abraham. At Passover, therefore, the Jewish people looked back through the whole of their history, remembering God's special love for them from the very dawn of creation. This holiest of days for the Jews became the holiest of days for Christians, who during their long vigil looked back through sacred history and saw the scriptures brought to fulfillment in the Resurrection of Christ.

By the fourth century, an increasing historical awareness led to the development of the Triduum, Holy Week, and Lent (in that order!), as Christians began to commemorate the Lord's passion in "real time," as it were, following him day by day from his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, to his arrest and crucifixion, to his resurrection.

The palmesel, a carved and painted figure of Christ on the donkey, figured in Palm Sunday processions in Germany. This is an example of how highly dramatic, even theatrical elements featured in medieval Palm Sunday processions. These examples are from Uberlingen (top), Ulm (center), and Strasbourg (bottom).

By the time the pilgrim Egeria journeyed to Jerusalem at the end of the fourth century, Holy Week--there called "the Great Week"--was already in place. It began with Palm Sunday (see below for an excerpt from her diary) and continued day by day, as the pilgrims moved about the city, from Bethany to Gethsemane to Golgotha. It was a dramatic commemoration, powerfully drawing the pilgrims into the Gospel narrative. Egeria describes how, at Gethsemane on Thursday evening, the account of Judas" betrayal and Christ's arrest is proclaimed: "During the reading of this passage there is such moaning and groaning with weeping from all the people that their moaning can be heard practically as far as the city." The processions from place to place were an important part of the observance, intended, like the liturgies themselves, to make Christ's passion something that was not so much preached to the faithful, as experienced by them.

In Rome, meanwhile, the sixth Sunday of Lent had its own, quite different character. It was not Palm Sunday, but Passion Sunday, marked by the reading of St. Matthew's Passion and the giving of the creed to the catechumens. It wasn"t until the 9th century--doubtless under the influence of pilgrims like Egeria--that the procession with palms made its way from Jerusalem to the Church in the west. As often happens in the liturgy, it was simply added on to the existing rites. The name that is now given to this feast, "Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion," acknowledges the dual nature of the celebration.

In the West, the procession with palms developed into a triumphal celebration, a "real feast of Christ the King" (Jounel). The procession typically gathered at a place outside of the town. The gospel of the Lord's entry into Jerusalem was read, and then "school children and choristers spread their cloaks before the cross; others then threw palms and branches on the cloaks." In the procession, the cross, or sometimes a Book of the Gospels or even the Blessed Sacrament, represented Christ. In Germany in the Middle Ages, the tradition of the palmesel developed, and a beautifully carved figure of Christ on a donkey, mounted on wheels, figured in the procession.

The faithful (then as now!) loved the blessed palms, and attributed many marvelous properties to them. Farmers would place the blessed palms in their fields to protect them from storms; families placed a blessed palm near the crucifix in their home to ward off dangers of every kind; and it was thought that a blessed palm placed in the church organ would prevent ciphers. Some of these popular customs survive today.

Palm Sunday as we celebrate it today is full of what has been called liturgical "whiplash": the juxtaposition of contrasts we will feel over and over again during Holy Week. At St. James, we experience this powerfully in the music and liturgy. We begin with joy: trumpets sound, and we sing the joyful hymn, "All glory, laud and honor to you, Redeemer King! To whom the lips of children made sweet Hosannas ring!" We process waving our palm branches, blessing the Lord as we go, and we enter the Cathedral to the peals of the organ.

But no sooner have we sat down for the Liturgy of the Word than the entire tone of the celebration shifts. We hear of Isaiah's suffering servant: "I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting." St. Paul reminds us that Christ "humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." And then comes the solemn reading of the Passion, which carries us past the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, to Christ's death and burial. The Liturgy of the Eucharist is celebrated as simply as possible, and the liturgy concludes with the tolling of a single bell. Holy Week has begun.