Palm weaving workshops join faith, culture for Palm Sunday
Christians around the world will be getting blessed palm branches at Palm Sunday services, which start the church’s most solemn week
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — As new volunteers kept streaming into the Church of the Incarnation, Reynaldo Hidalgo prepped fresh palm fronds for them to weave into elaborate designs that will be blessed at services on Palm Sunday, the start of Christianity’s holiest week.
“It’s to give welcome to the king, our Lord Jesus Christ,” said Hidalgo, who has led traditional Mexican palm weaving workshops here for half a dozen years, along with his wife. “We wanted to keep a memory of this tradition.”
Many Christians around the world will be getting blessed palm or other tree branches this weekend, in commemoration of Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem, when the Gospel narrates that crowds spread branches on the road before him.
At Hidalgo's Catholic church, and others across the country where parishioners observe the Easter traditions of many Latin American and European countries, the fronds are woven and braided into intricate designs of up to several feet, often decorated with rosettes, ribbons and images of Jesus or the saints.
