Palm Sunday 2027: The Palms, the Passion & the Start of Holy Week

The entry into Jerusalem: what actually happened

All four Gospels record it — one of the few events they all share outside the Passion itself. Days before Passover, Jesus approached Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives and sent two disciples ahead for a colt, "an ass tied, and a colt with her," that He would ride into the city (Matthew 21:2). The crowd — swollen with Passover pilgrims who had heard of the raising of Lazarus (John 12:17–18) — spread their garments on the road, cut branches from the trees, and met Him with the acclamation of Psalm 117: "Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest" (Matthew 21:9).

Every detail is deliberate. Riding a donkey rather than a warhorse fulfilled Zacharias's prophecy to the letter: "Behold thy King will come to thee, the just and saviour: he is poor, and riding upon an ass" (Zacharias 9:9) — a king of peace, not of conquest. The palm branches were the victory symbol of the age, waved for triumphant rulers. The crowd was proclaiming Him Messiah in full public view, and He — who had spent His ministry slipping away from such acclamations — this time accepted it. When the Pharisees demanded He silence them, He answered that if these were silent, "the stones will cry out" (Luke 19:40).

And yet He entered the city weeping over it (Luke 19:41), because He knew what the week held. The crowd wanted a Messiah who would conquer Rome; He had come to conquer death. The distance between those two expectations is exactly the distance between Sunday's "Hosanna" and Friday's "Crucify him" — and the liturgy of Palm Sunday is built to make you feel it.

What happens at Mass on Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday's liturgy is unlike any other Sunday of the year. Its full name tells you why: Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord — two commemorations fused into one Mass:

• ◆The blessing of palms and the procession. Mass opens with the congregation holding palm branches, which the priest blesses with holy water and prayer. A Gospel account of the entry into Jerusalem is proclaimed, and then all process into (or through) the church — the one Sunday the whole assembly literally walks the Gospel it just heard.
• ◆Red vestments. Not Lent's violet: red, the color of blood and of kingship — worn on this day, Good Friday, Pentecost, and the feasts of martyrs, apostles, and evangelists.
• ◆The Passion, read entire. In place of a normal Gospel reading, the full Passion narrative is proclaimed — in 2027 (Year B of the lectionary), the Passion according to St. Mark: the Last Supper, Gethsemane, the arrest, the trials, Peter's denial, the crucifixion, death, and burial. It is the longest Gospel reading of the year, often proclaimed with several readers taking parts and the congregation voicing the crowd.
• ◆The silence at the death. When the reading reaches the moment Christ dies, the whole church kneels in silence — one of the liturgical year's most arresting moments.

The blessed palms: what they are and what to do with them

The palms you carry home are not souvenirs. Once blessed, they are sacramentals — sacred signs that prepare us to receive grace (CCC 1667–1670), in the same family as holy water and blessed medals. And that status carries a practical rule almost everyone learns eventually: blessed objects are never simply thrown in the trash (cf. c. 1171 — sacred items are to be treated with reverence). Here is what to do instead:

• ◆Display them. The universal custom: tuck a palm behind a crucifix or holy image at home, where it stays all year as a quiet witness of Holy Week. Many fold them into small crosses — a folk art centuries old.
• ◆Keep them until next Lent, then return them. Most parishes collect old palms in the weeks before Lent and burn them — and those ashes are the very ones smudged on foreheads on Ash Wednesday. Your 2027 palm is, quite literally, the raw material of the 2028 ashes.
• ◆If you must dispose of them yourself: burn them and return the ashes to the earth, or bury them. Reverent return to the elements, not the garbage can.
• ◆Give one away. Bring a palm to a homebound relative or a hospital room — an old and lovely corporal work dressed as an errand.

Holy Week: what begins today

Palm Sunday is a door. It opens the most important seven days of the Christian year — Holy Week — and from here the liturgy accelerates day by day toward the Cross and the empty tomb. The week ahead in 2027:

• ◆Monday–Wednesday, March 22–24 — the quiet days: Christ teaching in the Temple, the anointing at Bethany, Judas's bargain. Many dioceses celebrate the Chrism Mass this week, blessing the year's holy oils.
• ◆[Holy Thursday](/liturgical-year/holy-thursday), March 25 — Lent ends as evening falls and the Triduum begins: the Mass of the Lord's Supper, the washing of feet, the institution of the Eucharist and the priesthood, and the night watch before the altar of repose.
• ◆[Good Friday](/liturgical-year/good-friday), March 26 — the Passion according to St. John, the veneration of the Cross, and the year's second obligatory day of fasting and abstinence. The only day of the year with no Mass.
• ◆[Holy Saturday](/liturgical-year/holy-saturday), March 27 — the great silence; then, after nightfall, the Easter Vigil — fire, word, water, and the sacraments of initiation for those entering the Church.
• ◆[Easter Sunday](/liturgical-year/easter-sunday), March 28 — the Resurrection, and fifty days of feast.

How to keep Palm Sunday 2027 well

The day asks little and offers much. A simple plan:

1. 1Arrive early — March 21 draws near-Christmas crowds, and the procession often begins outside or at the back of the church. Find your parish's schedule (or find a parish).
2. 2Take part in the procession like you mean it. Hold the palm, sing the Hosanna, and remember you are not watching a reenactment — the liturgy joins you to the event itself (CCC 1104).
3. 3Stay inside the Passion reading. It is long on purpose; resist the glance at the time, and when the congregation speaks the crowd's lines, notice whose voice that script puts in your mouth.
4. 4Bring your palms home and enthrone them — behind the crucifix, above a doorway — and let them stand there until they come back for burning next Lent.
5. 5Plan your Triduum tonight. Decide now to attend Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Vigil or Easter Mass — the three days are one single liturgy in three acts, and this is the week to walk all of it. If you haven't made a Lenten confession yet, this week is the deadline that concentrates the mind (how confession works).

Go Deeper