HOLY WEEK … Our Journey with Jesus

Praying as a family begins here! Holy Week: A Family Journey with Jesus provides the perfect format for family prayer for each day of Holy Week.

On the Sunday before the Feast of Great and Holy Pascha, this Sunday April 5th, we, as a Church, begin our journey with Jesus as we commemorate His passion, death, and resurrection.

We begin this week by our celebration of Palm Sunday or Willow Sunday in the Ukrainian Catholic tradition. On this day, we receive blessed pussy willows as we recall the triumphal entry of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem following His glorious miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead. After having heard of the miracle, the people went out to meet Jesus and welcomed Him with shouts of praise. On this day, we receive and worship Christ in this same manner, acknowledging Him as our King and Lord.

There are reasons why we use pussy willows on this day instead of palms:

– Pussy willows are to be found in Ukraine.

– Pussy willows have a beautiful symbolic reason for their use. During the winter

months, the willow trees appear to be dead, but in the Spring, they bud forth with life,

symbolizing the resurrection.

Let us carry our willow branches home, adorn the icon, in our prayer corner and as a family acclaim Jesus as our King. Let us gather, as the domestic church, daily before our icon corner to thank Jesus for our family members and to pray for each other that we will always follow and acclaim Jesus in our lives.