Where do you get your palms for Palm Sunday?

[UpUpAndAway]

Territorial parish: parishioners with boxwood bushes in their gardens donate cuttings for Palm Sunday. These are handed out by the greeters and blessed by the celebrant priest at the start of Mass.

ICRSS: cuttings from the rectory garden’s boxwood bushes and/or those donated from parishioners’ gardens are blessed and distributed by the Canon. A procession follows, then the Mass begins.

There are many options for what to do with the branches (some parishes use olive tree branches, pussy willow, or other plants) or palm fronds. Decorating holy images is common, as is weaving into religious symbols in parishes that use palms. Old palms or branches are collected each year by some parishes to be burned to obtain ashes for Ash Wednesday. Burning is the conventional method of disposal, whether or not the resulting ashes are used on Ash Wednesday.

 

[OldCAFMember]

At the parish I attended when we first moved to Miami, the young people went each year to a specific location and cut the palms themselves. Its location was a secret that had been passed down through the years, and not even the parish priest knew where it was. My father was annoyed that I wouldn’t tell him, even years later, where the location was. Years later, when the Latin Mass Community started up, we were in a hospital chapel, so we still needed palms. By that time I lived in another part of town, but remembered that the trees in a specific empty lot near work resembled the secret location from years earlier. I went there, pushed the brush back and, behold, found palms that I was able to cut.

 

[maryjk]

Our parish provides them.

But our priest told us about another parish that he attended, where parishioners brought their own. Each family would cut enough for their family. The parish didn’t provide any.

 

[HeDa]

We need to place a special order for palms in the flower shop. Willows are free and we are allowed to cut them down under power lines where I live.