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.

Prayer for Palm Sunday

When you come to me in communion, Lord Jesus, I am happy and content. I forget my woes and worries in my love for you. If I go from happiness into depression, I feel awful, yet I forget that, during the first Holy Week, you made the same journey.

How excited you must have been when the crowds welcomed you in Jerusalem, and when at last it seemed that they understood your message.

Yet a few days later they were howling for your blood, wishing you dead. The praise of Palm Sunday made the sufferings of your Passion worse. It would be difficult for any human being to take such a strain, yet you were more, for you were God.

Your state was divine, you were the equal of God our Father, yet you humbled yourself to become one like us. Not only were you born for us, but you humbled yourself to die for us, all because of the will of your Father. How can I thank you, Lord, for all that you have done for me! As usual, I forget to thank you for your gifts, for your grace.

I´m inclined to presume on you for all that I need.

When I think of your sufferings, I realize that my own are as nothing.

Thank you for keeping me alive today, able to look forward to tomorrow. Thank you for the food I eat, for the clothes I wear, for the house I live in. Thank you, Lord, for the grace to keep going until you call me to yourself. It´s a long road that knows no ending, but I can travel it in confidence, since I know that you are there waiting for me at the gate of Heaven.
Amen.