When Is Palm Sunday 2021? Meaning Behind The Date That Starts ...

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Christians will celebrate Palm Sunday this weekend, the feast that always falls on the Sunday before Easter.

Palm Sunday marks the first day of Holy Week, the last week of Lent. The date changes every year, since Easter also moves based on the full moon cycle. Next year Palm Sunday will not be until 10 April.

Here is everything you need to know about it.

What is the meaning of Palm Sunday?

Palm Sunday marks when Jesus triumphantly rode into Jerusalem a week before his resurrection. The event is recounted in each of the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

According to the gospels Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem, crying before he enters, as he knows the sacrifice he is about to make.

As he rode into the city people laid down their cloaks, palm leaves and small tree branches on the ground before him, and sung a psalm: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord.”

In many ancient Eastern cultures, it was customary to cover the path of someone deemed worthy of the highest honour, while in Roman culture palm leaves were symbols of victory.

As such, the palm symbol came to represent triumph over death for Christian martyrs.

How is Palm Sunday celebrated?

Many churches hand out palm leaves to their congregation on Palm Sunday, often blessed first by the clergy. People take them home and hang them on their walls, alongside Christian art, or fold them into cross shapes.

Churches collect them again during the next’s year’s Lent, before ritually burning them on Shrove Tuesday to make the ashes used on Ash Wednesday.

While the day is named Palm Sunday, other types of branch can also be used, such as yew and olive.

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