To­mor­row fol­low­ers of the Chris­t­ian faith around the world will ob­serve Palm Sun­day. It is one of the most im­por­tant days in the Chris­t­ian cal­en­dar and marks the be­gin­ning of Holy Week, im­me­di­ate­ly pre­ced­ing the week of events lead­ing up to Je­sus' death and res­ur­rec­tion.Palm Sun­day de­rives its name from the palm branch­es that were waved by the crowds of peo­ple and strewn in the path of Je­sus as he en­tered Jerusalem for the Passover rid­ing on a don­key.They shout­ed: 'Hosan­na!' (Lib­er­ate us) be­liev­ing that Je­sus was the Mes­si­ah com­ing to free them from Ro­man op­pres­sion.As a sym­bol of their faith and de­vo­tion, many Chris­tians keep the palm cross­es which are dis­trib­uted dur­ing Palm Sun­day ser­vice and hang them in their hous­es through the year.

Ac­cord­ing to Leela Ramdeen, chair of the Catholic Com­mis­sion for So­cial Jus­tice, the Jew­ish peo­ple most like­ly picked up the prac­tice of us­ing and wav­ing palms in cel­e­bra­tions and coro­na­tions from the Ro­mans.Ramdeen ex­plained: "The wav­ing of palms was sig­nif­i­cant in those days in Jerusalem be­cause the Ro­mans used to give palms to those who were vic­to­ri­ous in their games, ex­am­ple char­i­ot races, glad­i­a­to­r­i­al games, mil­i­tary con­quests and the crown­ing of Cae­sars."Palm Sun­day is al­so known as Pas­sion Sun­day be­cause it com­mem­o­rates the be­gin­ning of Holy Week and Je­sus' fi­nal ag­o­nis­ing jour­ney to the cross. The Eng­lish word 'pas­sion' comes from Latin, 'pati' to suf­fer. Palm Sun­day is now called Palm Sun­day of the Lord's Pas­sion.

Ramdeen said the low­ly don­key played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the event."It is in­ter­est­ing his­tor­i­cal­ly and sig­nif­i­cant that you see the don­key play­ing a ma­jor role be­cause peo­ple who would have re­ceived palms, the vic­tors, would have rid­den in on their hors­es or char­i­ots, not on a don­key, which was used by sim­ple coun­try peo­ple."You wouldn't find rich peo­ple rid­ing don­keys," Ramdeen said. "In fact that sym­bol­ise not on­ly the hu­mil­i­ty of Je­sus, but peace. He did not come for war like war­riors who waved palms."It re­al­ly is iron­i­cal that Je­sus made his tri­umphal en­try in­to Jerusalem dur­ing his last week on this earth on a don­key, which be­came the throne for our King, the Son of God."Ash­es made by burn­ing palm fronds kept from Palm Sun­day are used on Ash Wednes­day and are blessed by a priest.Ramdeen re­vealed that some Palm Sun­day tra­di­tions are no longer be­ing fol­lowed."Some church­es do not tie the palms in­to lit­tle cross­es but just give you a piece of palm in­stead," she said.

"I re­mem­ber in times past when the priest would press the palm against your lips, then you kissed his hand. There would al­so be a pro­ces­sion through the church and around the com­pound and in­to the street."It was a pub­lic demon­stra­tion of our faith and be­lief in the risen Christ. That's how we used to do it. I don't know if that is done now."She con­tin­ued: "Al­ter­na­tive­ly palms were just hand­ed out by al­tar boys, or al­tar girls be­cause now we have girls al­so. In cer­tain coun­tries and places, de­pend­ing on the size of the parish, the priest dis­trib­uted the palms to his con­gre­ga­tion, but in Trinidad servers hand­ed them out."

Ramdeen added that there is an im­por­tant les­son to be learned from how Je­sus was treat­ed by the crowds."We must not for­get about the fick­le­ness of peo­ple. One minute they're prais­ing Je­sus as king and the next they want to ex­change him for Barab­bas and have him cru­ci­fied on the cross."If we are to live as Catholics and re­flect Gospel val­ues-there are more than 300,000 Catholics in T&T-we would change our so­ci­ety. We will be the leav­en in the dough, we will be the light that shines. Je­sus was seen as the light of world. He came for us to live like he did."