Today, April 13, 2025, is Palm Sunday, and as it has been from time immemorial, Christians all over the world will celebrate one of the most sacred events in Christendom.
WHAT IS PALM SUNDAY?
Palm Sunday, in the Christian tradition, is the first day of Holy Week and the Sunday before Easter, commemorating Jesus Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
It is associated in many churches with the blessing and procession of palms (leaves of the date palm or twigs from locally available trees).
Its name originates from the palm branches waved by the crowd to greet and honour Jesus Christ as he entered the city.
Palm Sunday marks the first day of Holy Week; in Western Christianity, this is the beginning of the last week of the solemn season of Lent, preceding Eastertide, while in Eastern Christianity, Holy Week commences after the conclusion of Great Lent.
In most Christian rites, Palm Sunday is celebrated by the blessing and distribution of palm branches (or the branches of other, native trees), representing the palm branches that the crowd scattered before Christ as he rode into Jerusalem.
These palms are sometimes woven into crosses. The difficulty of procuring palms in unfavorable climates led to the substitution of branches of native trees, including box, olive, willow, and yew.
Many churches of mainstream Christian denominations, including the Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Anglican, Moravian, and Reformed traditions, distribute palm branches to their congregations during their Palm Sunday liturgies.
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 and daily devotional books.
In the days preceding the next year’s Lent, known as Carnival or Shrovetide, churches often place a basket in their narthex to collect these palms, which are then ritually burned on Shrove Tuesday to make the ashes to be used on the following day, Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent.
Nigerian Christians will not be left behind as palm, in crosses, or in fronds will be seen all over the place with both young and old, male or female, clergy or worshippers bearing one.
