Palm Sunday: Why the Palms? Why the Donkey? Why “Hosanna,” and Why the Passion?

Palm Sunday is one of the most striking days in the whole Church year because it holds together two realities that seem almost impossible to place side by side: joy and sorrow, triumph and suffering, praise and rejection. The Church does not celebrate it simply as “the day Jesus entered Jerusalem with palms.” Its full liturgical name is Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion. That title matters. From the very beginning of the liturgy, the Church wants us to see not only the entry into Jerusalem, but the road that entry was leading toward: the Cross.

At the beginning of Mass, we hear the Gospel of Jesus entering Jerusalem. He does not come in on a war horse. He comes humble, riding on a donkey, with a colt beside it, in fulfillment of prophecy. Matthew explicitly connects this moment to the prophecy: “Behold, your king comes to you, meek and riding on an ass, and on a colt.” This is not a king arriving to crush enemies by force. This is the King who comes in peace, gentleness, and obedience to the Father.

The palms matter too. In the Gospel accounts, the crowd cuts branches and spreads them on the road as Jesus enters the city. Palm Sunday has always commemorated this triumphal entry, and the Church preserves that memory in the blessing and procession of palms. Even today, the palms are often taken home as sacramentals, and in many places they are later burned to provide the ashes for Ash Wednesday the following year. That alone is a profound sign: the branches of praise eventually become the ashes of repentance.

Then there is the cry: “Hosanna!” Many people hear that word as pure praise, but its roots are deeper. “Hosanna” comes from a Hebrew expression meaning, in its original sense, “Save, we pray” or “Save us now.” Over time it became a liturgical acclamation of praise, but it still carries within it that cry for deliverance. So when the crowd shouts “Hosanna,” they are not just cheering. They are crying out for salvation, even if they do not yet understand the kind of salvation Jesus has come to bring.

This is where Palm Sunday becomes spiritually piercing. The same Jesus who is welcomed with cloaks, branches, and shouts of joy is the One whose Passion is then proclaimed in full at the Mass. The Church does this deliberately. Vatican News notes that the liturgy of this day is “entirely characterized by the theme of Jesus’s Passion.” In other words, Palm Sunday is not meant to leave us standing at the gates of Jerusalem admiring the procession. It is meant to lead us into Holy Week, into the mystery of Christ’s suffering, obedience, and self-giving love.

That is why the Passion is read on Palm Sunday and not only the opening Gospel of the procession. The Church does not want us to stop at the excitement of the entrance. She wants us to face the full truth of who this King is. He is not crowned by earthly power. He reigns from the Cross. The same liturgy that begins with branches and acclamations moves us quickly into betrayal, trial, scourging, crucifixion, and death, because the triumph of Christ is inseparable from His sacrifice.

There is also a practical and pastoral wisdom here. Palm Sunday is one of the most widely attended liturgies of the year, while Holy Thursday and Good Friday are not days of obligation. For that reason, having the Passion proclaimed on Palm Sunday helps ensure that the faithful truly hear and enter into the Passion of the Lord liturgically, even if they cannot attend the later Holy Week services. That practical reason does not replace the deeper theological meaning, but it helps explain the Church’s wisdom.

So Palm Sunday teaches us something essential about Jesus and something essential about ourselves. Jesus accepts praise, but He does not chase applause. He accepts kingship, but redefines it through humility. He enters Jerusalem not to take life, but to lay down His own. And we, the faithful, are asked not merely to wave palms for a moment, but to follow Him faithfully when the road turns dark.

There is another sobering lesson here. The crowd can cry “Hosanna” one day, and within days the atmosphere surrounding Jesus becomes one of rejection, mockery, and violence. Palm Sunday warns us against shallow discipleship. It is possible to admire Jesus publicly and yet not remain with Him when the Cross appears. The Church places the Passion on Palm Sunday so that our devotion will not remain sentimental. She invites us to move from enthusiasm to fidelity.

As for the history of the celebration itself, the observance of Palm Sunday is ancient. Evidence points to a palm procession in Jerusalem by the fourth century, and Vatican News notes that such a procession took place “as early as 400.” Historical summaries also point to the testimony of the pilgrim Egeria, whose account describes Holy Week observances in Jerusalem, including the reenactment of Christ’s entry into the city. From Jerusalem, the celebration spread and developed into the forms the Church knows today.

So what is Palm Sunday really about? It is about the kind of King Jesus is. He comes humble. He comes peaceful. He comes to save. He comes not with military force, but with divine love. And the Church, in her wisdom, refuses to let us separate His glory from His Passion. She places both before our eyes on the same day so that we may enter Holy Week rightly: not as spectators, but as disciples.

Today, then, let us not hold the palms lightly. Let them remind us that Christ is King. Let “Hosanna” rise from our hearts not as empty sound, but as a real cry: Lord, save us. And let the Passion we hear move us beyond admiration into conversion, beyond emotion into surrender, beyond momentary praise into lasting faithfulness.