March 24, 2016

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday is the final Sunday of Lent, the beginning of Holy Week before Easter. The feast commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. 

During Palm Sunday Mass, people buy palm leaves then carry it in a ritual procession into church. The palms are blessed and many people will fashion them into small crosses or other items of personal devotion. These may be returned to the church, or kept for the year. Because the palms are blessed, they may not be discarded as trash. Instead, they are appropriately gathered at the church and incinerated to create the ashes that will be used in the follow year's Ash Wednesday observance.

Every Palm Sunday, my family buys palm. For this year, I've decided to just cut from our plant since it has grown bigger for the last two years. And besides, our plant needed some pruning.

Before and after pruning

If you have palm in your garden, you might want to do the same and add more personalized touch by decorating it with red ribbons or braiding the leaves, if you know how.


Palm is also known as bamboo palm, golden cane palm, areca palm, yellow palm, or butterfly palm. It is a species of flowering plant in the Arecaceae family, native to Madagascar. It Scientific name is Dypsis lutescens

(Sources: Catholic.com for Palm Sunday and Wikipedia for Palm)

21 comments:

  1. I remember my mom-in-law would always have leaves for Palm Sunday and hang it at the door after church. She has her own grown plant in her garden. So, she doesn't have to buy it every year. Great blog!😆

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    1. Starting this year, di na din kami bibili. Tipid no.

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  2. Very good idea to grow and use your own -- from your garden pa. And which reminds me that now the boys are on school break, we will start planting again and we would like to have our own herbs. Good luck to us.

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  3. Oooh now I know. I grew up in a born-again Christian household, and Catholic traditions have always intrigued me. Now I know where the ashes come from. :) But may I ask, why palms? Does it symbolise anything?

    Happy Easter Sunday! :)

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    1. It's probably because they use branches from the Palm and Olive Trees to line the road before.

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  4. We usually keep the palm we buy during Palm Sunday.I think it's because it brings good luck.

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    1. We also keep them for a year. and use the ashes for Ash Wednesday.

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  5. This is a good idea. I'll plant this when we have a good location for the plants... this will save me a few bucks because my son wanted to have this own palaspas eh.

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  6. Ang galing naman! You have you own palm at home!

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    1. This palm was given by my mom-in-law 2 years ago. lumaki na sya.

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  7. Nice to see how you've spent your palm sunday. God bless you! :)

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  8. I always attend mass every Palm Sunday and display the blessed palm in our house/altar but this year we missed it.

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    1. Awww. Next yr na lang. Maiintindihan naman ni God yan.

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  9. Nice, malaking tipid and think you can share with your family and friends :)

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  10. Very informative! Thanks for the enlightenment. :)

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  11. We have this plant at home, but we always opted to buy. My mom wants the intricate ones with a lot of designs. I never thought of just cutting from the plant. I'll do this next year :)

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Thank you for the joyful comments!