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Palm Sunday, or Passion Sunday, is a moveable feast in the church calendar observed by Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians. Palm Sunday is the Sunday before Easter. In the Western church, Palm Sunday must always fall on one of the 35 dates between March 15 and April 18. Palm Sunday celebrates the day Jesus made his triumphant entry into Jerusalem to the cheers of the crowd.
The feast Palm Sunday commemorates an event reported by all four Canonical Gospels (:Mark 11:1-11, Matthew 21:1-11, Luke 19:28-44, and John 12:12-19) - the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in the days before his Passion. The difficulty of procuring palms for that day's ceremonies in unfavorable climates for palms led to the substitution of boughs of yew, willow or other native trees. |
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The Sunday was often designated by the names of these trees, as Yew Sunday or by the general term Branch Sunday (the only French equivalent is (Dimanche des) Rameaux, 'branches sunday'). Many Christians and Messianic Jews regard this event as the terminus of the first 69 weeks of Daniel's Prophecy of Seventy Weeks, and thereby a very holy day. Even setting this aside, the nature of the entry and its circumstances are usually deemed enough to warrant a special feast.
Palm Sunday, in the Christian calendar, the Sunday before Easter, sixth and last Sunday in Lent, and the first day of Holy Week. It recalls the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem riding upon an ass, when his followers shouted “Hosanna” and scattered palms in his path. In the Roman Catholic and some Protestant churches, ceremonies of the day are the blessing and distribution of crosses made from palm leaves and the recitation of one of the three synoptic accounts of the Passion. Many wear crosses made of the palm.
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