In a congregation of predominantly Latino and Caribbean membership in Brooklyn New York, Palm Sunday (Domingo de Ramos) has long featured the entrance Gospel and procession through the neighborhood or through the building to the song "Enter Into Jerusalem." Palm branches are distributed, waved, woven and taken out to be placed in the entrance of apartments and homes as a form of annual blessing and invitation. The same branches, long since dried out, are brought back on the last Sunday of Epiphany, the Transfiguration of our Lord. On Shrove Tuesday, those branches are crushed, burned and combined with oil to make the ashes used on Ash Wednesday. Miercoles de Ceniza and Domingo de Ramos are significant days of penance and celebration in the lives of the faithful, featuring the visible sign of palm branches. There is no danger of folks not showing up the rest of Holy Week - under normal circumstances there is a living Passion drama on Good Friday along with the Stations of the Cross, with baptisms and new member accession on the Vigil of Easter or Easter Sunday.

I support wholeheartedly Pastor Weedon's sentiments on the Gospel reading for Palm Sunday.