Palm Sunday Opens Holy Week Across Brazil as Aparecida Leads With Masses and Procession

Overview

• The Santuário Nacional de Aparecida, which published Sunday’s schedule, is holding multiple masses plus an 8 a.m. blessing and procession that begins at the Memorial dos Construtores.
• Last year the sanctuary drew an estimated 80,000 to 90,000 worshipers for Palm Sunday, and its spokesperson said attendance is expected to rise this year.
• Blessed branches and the procession recall Jesus entering Jerusalem as crowds waved ramos, a practice rooted in Jewish symbols of royalty that Christians use to honor Christ’s spiritual kingship.
• Parishes keep the blessed palms from today’s services to burn them into ashes for next year’s Ash Wednesday, tying Palm Sunday to the Lenten cycle of penance.
• At the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV told worshipers that God rejects the prayer of those who wage war, and church leaders in Jerusalem said police blocked a Palm Sunday mass at the Holy Sepulchre.