When a Palm is not a Palm

This year, the parish was supplying real palms for Palm Sunday.  The so-called palms used when I was first baptised were actually not palms but cycads.  Cycads are seed plants that do not have flowers.  Palms are seed plants that have flowers.  Cycads are closer to conifers than to the coconut trees.  Yet, in Singapore, people prefer cycad leaves because they are hard and keep longer than the young and supple palm leaves that we had used in the parish this year.  When I was younger, I was quite upset that we use leaves that are obviously not palms during Palm Sunday.  It was only when I studied in Rome that I realised that Singapore was more privileged than our brothers and sisters in Italy.  In Italy, young olive branches are used during Palm Sunday.  Palms are not readily available there.

A Cycad Plant

A Palm Plant

The problem I had was that I was concerned with the wrong details regarding Palm Sunday.  In the Missal, the title for the Liturgy on Palm Sunday is “Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord.”  What is really important is that we are celebrating the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem with a view of His Passion.  Jesus entered into Jerusalem triumphant, yet knowing that there was a Passion waiting for Him.  Jesus’ conviction of His mission was not due to a simple human courage.  He was able to enter Jerusalem because He totally loved His Father and nothing could prevent Him from obeying His Father, not even death.  As we read in the Passion Narrative that forms a significant part of the Liturgy, Jesus was afraid.  Despite His fear, He was determined to do His Father's will.  Jesus is thus an example to us of Christian moral courage: we act due to the fact that we want to do the Father's will, that we love the Father by obeying Him.  For example, when we give alms, are we doing it because it is expected of us, or because we want to love the Father through loving the brothers and sisters in our midst?

The same people that waved palm leaves to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem became the ones that would later shouted “Crucify him!” Are we like them?  Let us pray that the love and grace that God gives us would lead us to be more like Jesus than to those who called Him King on one day and condemned Him on another.