by Fred Moleck
Egeria's Palm Sunday
Not too long ago, a student in my Music for the Eucharist and Liturgical Year class asked when the first Palm Sunday with the procession with palm branches originated.The other students turned to him and said, “Duh . . . Jesus.”
As the champion of the downtrodden and easily ridiculed, I immediately jumped in and said, “What John is asking is when did the ritual of blessing the palms and processing with them into the church originate.”
Another student said, “With Jesus.” Well no . . . there were no churches then, just one large temple.
Seeing this as an opportunity to teach and talk about my favorite mystery character in the history of the church, Egeria. I launched a full-press attack and read from my notes of yesteryear the passage from The Travels of Egeria about the liturgical year in the Holy Land in the late fourth century.
For those of you who might have missed that class, you need to know that Egeria is considered to be a fourth-century Spanish nun or learned woman who traveled through the Holy Land observing and writing her observations down in a diary.
There is no conclusive evidence that she was nun or even being from Spain. It is assumed that she is, because she (1) knows how to read and write; (2) sends back to her “sisters” what she has observed; (3) has the capability to travel for three years, which takes a lot of support to pull off.
She did it.
Her writings are as thorough as they are humanistic. What is included in a full single-spaced paragraph below is part of her description of Palm Sunday in fourth-century Jerusalem.
For example, “All the children of the neighborhood, even those who are too young to walk, are carried by their parents on their shoulders, all of them bearing branches.”
Every time I read this passage I am amazed how deep our liturgical roots are grounded in ancient Christian ritual.
I include the whole passage from The Travels of Egeria to lend some perspective to what we do as music-liturgy ministers during these last days of Lent and, of course, the Triduum.
On the same day, at the ninth hour, they go forth to the Mount of Olives with palm branches; and there they pray and sing psalms until the tenth hour. And after that they go down into the holy Anastasis, chanting [psalms] . . . Hymns and antiphons suitable to the day and to the place are said, interspersed with lections and prayers. And as the eleventh hour approaches, the passage from the Gospel is read, where the children, carrying branches and palms, met the Lord, saying; Blessed is He that cometh in the name o the Lord, and the bishop immediately rises, and . . . all the people going before him with hymns and antiphons, answering one to another: Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord. And all the children in the neighbourhood, even those who are too young to walk, are carried by their parents on their shoulders, all of them bearing branches, some of palms and some of olives, and thus the bishop is escorted in the same manner as the Lord was of old. (The Pilgrimage of Etheria, trans. M. L. McClure, C. C. Feltoe, DD [London: Society for Promoting Christina Knowledge, 1919], 65–66)
The description has the kernel of what we experienced last Sunday: readings, hymns and antiphons, procession, carrying palm branches, singing “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
After 1500 years, it still works.
I am equally touched by her concern about the little children. At one point in the diary of her travels, she also shows sympathy to older people, who might find the procession up and down the Mount of Olives a little taxing.
So far—thankfully—no one has seen her description as a fourth-century children’s Liturgy of the Word.
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@comcast.net