Holy Week 2025: This was held on Palm Sunday in the Holy Land

The Catholic community of the Holy Land, afflicted by the violence of war between Israel and Hamas for more than a year, met to celebrate Ramos Sunday in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher and “to say with roundness that we are not afraid”, according to Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.

“I do not want to repeat the same usual things. We know that we live difficult times. But we cannot and want to limit ourselves to saying how hard these times are. Today we must remember something else, what matters most,” said the patriarch.

“Today we are here, local Christians and pilgrims, all together, to say that we are not afraid. We are children of light and resurrection, life. We wait and believe in love that expires everything,” he added.

The procession of Las Palmas began in Betfagé and lowered the mount of the olive trees, until he reached the church of Santa Ana, located at the door of the lions, in order to tour “the same steps of Jesus at the time of his entrance to Jerusalem,” said the custody of Holy Land (CTS). With braided olive and palm branches, the faithful walked “praising God with songs and prayers.”

The words of Cardinal Pizzaballa resonate in the midst of a specially complicated moment for Christians in Jerusalem. A recent study documented 111 cases of harassment and violence against the Christian community in Israel and East Jerusalem, during the year 2024.

Identified attacks include episodes of physical aggression, such as spit, direct aggressions and vandalism against churches and monasteries, as well as cases of verbal harassment.

The patriarch asked “not to be afraid of those who want to divide” and said that “no one can separate us from our love from the holy city, as no one can separate us from the love of Christ (Rom 8,35).”

Solemn Mass in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher

In Sunday, the procession took place around the edicle that covers the Holy Sepulcher and immediately afterwards the solemn Mass was celebrated. At the beginning of the liturgy, Cardinal Pizzaballa blessed Las Palmas, who came from Jericho, and the olive branches that were brought from the Franciscan convent of San Salvador.

“The blessed bouquets later distributed to the faithful and the numerous concelebrants, thus beginning the traditional procession around the roundabout of the sepulcher,” explains the CTS.

“The gesture commemorates the triumphal entry of Jesus in Jerusalem, received by the festive crowd. The procession participants gave three laps around the edicle, a number that symbolizes the days that Christ remained in the sepulcher,” he adds.

The Franciscans notice that for the first time since 2017, Easter “will be held the same day both by the Catholic Church and by the Orthodox Churches”, cataloging this as “an exceptional occasion that also found echo in the liturgy of Ramos Sunday in the Holy Sepulcher.”

The Mass was held at the Magdalena altar. Around the edicle the celebrations of the Copta, Syria and Ethiopian church were carried out simultaneously.

“Following the old tradition, which dates back to the eleventh century, the story was sung in Latin by three friars of the Custody of the Holy Land, each of which played a role of the evangelical passage – Christ, the narrator and the people – using three different melodies,” said the Franciscans.