Yesterday marked the beginning of the Christian Holy Week. While each region and city in Italy has its own traditions as far as food and customs are concerned, the liturgical needs of Palm Sunday are the same throughout the country. Pay attention during the days leading up to Palm Sunday and you’ll see more than one gardening nursery truck pull up to the various churches to unload its goods.
In one of the oldest Marian churches in Rome (standing room only, right) you can see two large pots to either side of the main altar, as well as numerous boughs in front of it. As mentioned, standard practice for the celebration of the day when people covered the ground and shaded Jesus Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem with palm fronds. After all, it isn’t called Palm Sunday for nothing.
Just one question then . . why isn’t anyone holding actual Palm fronds, and why do those pots hold olive trees? Practical reasons, really. Palms are less common than olive trees in Italy, and a few of the Biblical passages that mention the event speak of boughs in general, or speak of palms and other branches as well.
So while occasionally the priests might actually carry finely woven palm fronds, on Palm Sunday Christian Italians almost exclusively carry olive branches, handed out to the faithful from enormous heaps at the entrance to most churches.
– Contributed by GB (see bio), Editor, Italian Notebook.
