The Mass I went to this Palm Sunday (not my own parish I hasten to add) was exactly the opposite. It was a "family celebration" and they went to town on the procession, children carrying elaborately decorated crosses, adults carrying green bits of some sort of hedge (not being a botanist I can't be more specific) and lots of songs led (or in practice exclusively sung) by the children's choir. In place of the first two readings we had a scripted three-way conversation between the priest, a child and the congregation relating Jesus' entry into Jerusalem to his coming into our own towns and lives. The Gospel started Matthew's account of the Passion but stopped after the Last Supper - no Gethsemane or anything further. The remaining hymns were about the Eucharist, donkeys and our mission to proclaim Jesus' message by helping the blind and poor. "Palm" Sunday it may have been; "Passion" Sunday it certainly wasn't. Incidentally, which name do parishes use for this occasion these days?On the thread Triduum 2011 - Hope all goes well!, Nick Baty wrote:And, last Sunday, a Palm Sunday Mass with no Palm ritual of any sort (including the Gospel reading). Still, the PP did tell the congregation, "Oh, and there are palms at the back if anyone wants to collect one on the way out".
The new translation won't do much to sort out this attitude to liturgy.
We have a long way to go.
(Having asked that question as an afterthought, I've changed this post from a reply to Nick's point into a new topic so that people can answer it without being ruled OT by discussing Palm/Passion Sunday on a Triduum thread!
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