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Palm Sunday
Green palm and olive branches carried into church, red vestments at the altar, and in Poland tall "palms" of dyed dried flowers.
The colours of Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday opens Holy Week. It recalls the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, when the crowd laid branches before him. Christians carry green branches in procession: palm fronds where they grow, olive in Italy, willow in Russia, box or yew further north. In the Philippines the fronds, called palaspas, are woven into fans and crosses. In Kerala the day is Oshana, and flowers are thrown. In Poland villagers make tall rods bound with dried flowers and grasses dyed pink, purple, yellow and green, and compete for the tallest. In Spain the palms may be bleached pale yellow by growing them covered. The priest wears red in the Catholic rite, because the day also begins the story of the Passion.
#5E8F3APalm greenFresh fronds and olive branches.#B11226Passion redVestments, for the suffering to come.#E9DCA0Bleached palmPale palms grown under cover in Spain.#D95C9ADyed-flower pinkPolish Easter palms of dried flowers.Values are fair approximations, not official shades.
Read about the colours
More colours tied to Palm Sunday
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Palm Sunday" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from family to family and place to place. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Red: Politikaner, CC BY-SA 3.0, source