Udupi: Palm Sunday Observed with Devotion in St. Lawrence Church, Moodubelle

By Dr. Eugene DSouza
Bellevision Media Network

Udupi/M’Belle, 28 Mar 2021: Palm Sunday was observed with great devotion in St. Lawrence Church, Moodubelle on Sunday, 28 March 2021 with blessing of the palms and solemn Palm Sunday Mass at 8 am.

 

Prior to the Holy Mass, parishioners with coconut palms gathered in front of the Grotto. Fr. Jithesh Castelino, Assistant Parish Priest of St. Lawrence Church along with Dr. Lawrence D’Souza, Fr. Sunil Kumar D’Souza, Fr. Charles Furtado (OFM Cap) and Deacon Vijay D’Souza conducted brief prayer service and blessed the palms. Thereafter, all the parishioners entered the church in procession for the solemn Palm Sunday Mass.

 

The Palm Sunday Solemn Mass was concelebrated by Fr. Jithesh Castelino as the chief celebrant assisted by Fr. Clement Mascarenhas, Dr. Lawrence D’Souza, Fr. Sunil Kumar D’Souza, Fr. Charles Furtado (OFM Cap) and Deacon Vijay D’Souza.

 

The Gospel of Palm Sunday was animated by Fr. Sunil Kumar D’Souza, Fr. Jithesh Castelino and Deacon Vijay D’Souza.

 

Delivering the homily, Deacon Vijay D’Souza said that Palm Sunday is the first day of the Holy Week. He narrated the significance of Palm Sunday and how the faithful prepare themselves during the Holy Week so that they may meaningfully participate in the joy of the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday.

 

 

Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. Palm Sunday marks the first day of Holy Week, the last week of the Christian solemn season of Lent that precedes the arrival of Eastertide.

 

In most liturgical churches, Palm Sunday is celebrated by the blessing and distribution of palm branches (or the branches of other native trees), representing the palm branches which the crowd scattered in front of Christ as he rode into Jerusalem. The difficulty of procuring palms in unfavorable climates led to their substitution with branches of native trees, including box, olive, willow, and yew. The Sunday was often named after these substitute trees, as in Yew Sunday, or by the general term Branch Sunday.

 

Many churches of mainstream Christian denominations, including the Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Anglican, Moravian and Reformed traditions, distribute palm branches to their congregations during their Palm Sunday liturgies. Christians take these palms, which are often blessed by clergy, to their homes where they hang them alongside Christian art (especially crosses and crucifixes) or keep them in their Bibles or devotionals. In the period preceding the next year’s Lent, known as Shrovetide, churches often place a basket in their narthex to collect these palms, which are then ritually burned on Shrove Tuesday to make the ashes to be used on the following day, Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent.