Florida Catholic | Palm Sunday Rituals Weave Family Bonds

Palm Sunday rituals weave family bonds

LAURA DODSON | FLORIDA CATHOLIC CORRESPONDENT

Published: 03.07.08

Carlos Gonzalez, 7, watches what his father, David, is doing while the two practice making palm crosses. See the link below for more photographs and resources on making palm crosses. Editor’s Note: David and Carlos Gonzalez are the husband and son of Florida Catholic Special Projects Editor, Jean Gonzalez.
JEAN GONZALEZ | FC

Palm crosses – so easy
a kid can do it?

• • •

Coming Next Week:
Family traditions for
Holy Thursday

The nostalgia of lost traditions is so often the lament heard today, but for Ella Heimrich of St. Finbarr Mission in Naples the reverse is true for Palm Sunday. She used to simply drape her palm leaves over a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the crucifix “because that’s the way my mother always did it,” but no longer.

“My daughter-in-law Nancy (Murray) is very creative and she braids and folds the palms into crosses. On Palm Sunday, she makes them after Mass at St. Gregory the Great Parish in Plantation and gives them away. She’s teaching my granddaughter, Noel, who’s 11, all the traditions. They come for dinner after Mass and they braid my palms for me.”

Traditions connect the past with the present and are handed on to the future. As with the palm, they are very much a reflection of Catholic belief. Jesuit Father Anthony Kissel, chairman of the department of philosophy and religion at Saint Leo University near Tampa, provided a bit of history to better understand.

“The first record of the church formally celebrating Christ’s entry into Jerusalem with a procession of branches dates to the fourth century in Jerusalem,” he said. “There is an indication in the sixth century of blessing of palms. The palm becomes a sacramental (object) with the blessing and a sacramental is a sign of our faith. It represents the mystery of commemorating what Christ did, and is still doing, through the symbol.

“The palm is a symbol of Christ’s willingness to go to Jerusalem to crucifixion and death, and his victory over death. In 1955, the church named this Sunday ‘Passion Sunday.’ It marks the beginning, the entrance into Holy Week.”

Thus evolved the tradition of transforming the palms of victory into crosses reminding us of Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection, which many continue to practice today. But, especially in a state such as Florida where just about everybody seems to be from somewhere else, traditions for Palm Sunday — March 16 this year — are as diverse as the population.

FAMILY TRADITIONS IMPORTED FROM EUROPE

Mary Rose Denaro, a parishioner at Holy Family in Orlando and Florida Catholic copy editor, has vivid memories of her mother’s traditions and customs, which she continues. “My mother always put palm under the mattress and on the crucifix that hung over the bed. My husband, Greg, weaves the palm and we put it around the base of the statue of the Blessed Mother that’s on the landing in our house. We were taught to put it in a place of prominence. My mother also would put a piece of palm in the envelope whenever she wrote to our family in Italy — a sign of peace.”

Terri Powell of St. Raphael Parish in Englewood separates the strands of palm, making one into a cross for behind the crucifix and placing the other into her prayer book. “Our daughter is following through with the traditions in her home,” she said.

Dolores Garvis of Sacred Heart Parish in Punta Gorda remembers the traditions of her Slovakian grandparents. “I know they didn’t have palms; they used willow branches instead. As a child, I remember a lot of people braiding and weaving the branches into different configurations and putting them on display in their living rooms.”

Nadia Decarlo from St. Martha Parish, Sarasota, is from central Italy. “They didn’t use palm, they used olive branches and you were instructed that you take it home and respect it because it’s blessed,” she said. “It’s a symbol of respect and when it’s time to replace it, you kiss it and then you burn it.”

ISLAND, LATIN AMERICAN PRACTICES SIMILAR

Father Jeanmarie F. Ligonde, director of Haitian Ministry for the Diocese of Venice and associate pastor at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Fort Myers, recalled, “My mother hung the palm at the front door and over the head of the statue of the Blessed Mother. In the Haitian culture, Palm Sunday is most important. Women make bracelets and men make crosses to wear on their shirts — they wear the blessed palm all day.”

Pierrette Faustin is also from Haiti, a parishioner at Blessed Pope John XXIII parish in Fort Myers. “We weave the palms into crosses,” she said. “We pray and place them wherever we want to have Christ’s presence with us.”

The focus on palms is similar throughout the many Hispanic cultures, explained Father Juan Sosa, pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Kendall, who is responsible for popular piety for the Archdiocese of Miami. “Hispanics see palms as a simple symbol, but they keep it at home in a space they consider sacred because it is blessed,” he said. “The focus is not on the palm, but on the beginning of a new journey to the passion.”

Anna Maria Sacher of Epiphany Parish in Miami is from Colombia and places crosses in her children’s bedrooms, but she also remembers that on Good Friday her mother would burn the old palms and go through each room offering up prayer. Cindy Castellano of Little Flower Parish in Pensacola is from the Philippines and spoke of another tradition, “The palm was burned whenever someone was sick or a woman was giving birth. The smoke is like incense offering up a healing prayer and for the safety of the baby.”

REMEMBERING THE DEAD ON PALM SUNDAY

Just as the traditions of palms connect us with the passion of Christ, they also connect us with those who have gone before. Growing up in Connecticut, Denaro’s family visited the cemetery every Palm Sunday. “The whole family gathered. I remember making crosses out of the palm and then visiting the graves of our deceased family members and placing the crosses in the ground at the headstone. We always prayed for the people in the cemetery. We did it as a family. They couldn’t come to church, so we brought the church to the graves. It is a way to remember and honor those who have gone before us and are still a part of our lives.”

Bridget Brooks of Holy Name of Jesus Parish in Niceville said, “We started keeping palms ever since my son, Airman 1st Class Joseph Rinkus, at age 22 was killed on June 25, 1996, in the Khobar Towers bombing at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The Lent before he died, Joseph gave us a palm he had made into a cross, and his sacrifice for his country made Jesus’ sacrifice very real to us. Now we place them behind pictures in our foyer, bedrooms and living room. They are honored and saved.”

For a look at family traditions for Holy Thursday, please see the March 14-20 issue of the Florida Catholic.

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