04/10/2022 14:49 (act 04/10/2022 14:50)
Liturgical celebration of Palm Sunday as the beginning of Holy Week ©APA/AFP
During the Palm Sunday Angelus prayer, Pope Francis called for a ceasefire in Ukraine during Easter week. “Let’s lay down our arms, let’s start an Easter truce. But not to reload our weapons and resume the fight, no, but to achieve a truce”, the Pope said.
“What kind of victory is it when you plant a flag on a pile of rubble?” asked the church leader. Francis again condemned the war with its “heinous massacres and terrible atrocities against defenseless civilians”.
The Pope urged the faithful to trust in God. “Nothing is impossible for God, not even the end of a war that has no end in sight, a war that shows us every day the hideous massacres and terrible atrocities committed against defenseless civilians.”
At the end of the Palm Sunday Mass, the Pope, wearing a cloak against the strong wind, boarded the popemobile to circumnavigate the various sectors of St. Peter’s Square and greet the tens of thousands of pilgrims nearby. The Pope has not been aboard the Popemobile in St Peter’s Square since the beginning of the pandemic.
On Sunday morning, the head of the church celebrated the liturgical celebration of Palm Sunday as the beginning of Holy Week. This was the first major service before numerous believers in St Peter’s Square in Rome after more than two years of the corona pandemic.
Already on Wednesday, the Pope criticized the “increasingly terrible atrocities” in Ukraine. He referred to the “Bocce Massacre” before kissing a Ukrainian flag of that “tortured city”.
Some 1.7 billion Catholic and Protestant Christians around the world begin “Holy Week” on Palm Sunday, the high point of the ecclesiastical year. On the Sunday before Easter, palm branches are traditionally carried in church procession, blessed with holy water and then placed behind crucifixes in homes. The Palm Sunday liturgy commemorates Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and marks the beginning of the Holy Week liturgy.
Because of the corona pandemic, the big celebrations in St. Peter’s Square in 2020 and 2021 had to be canceled and were largely moved to St. Peter’s Basilica. Last year, the pontiff prayed the traditional Via Sacra on Good Friday in the deserted square.
This year, Palm Sunday should sound like a “Holy Week” that is normal under the circumstances: the Holy Friday Way of the Cross is planned as usual at the Coliseum. On Easter Sunday, Holy Mass in St. Peter’s Square follows, followed by the “Urbi et Orbi” blessing.