When I was young, one of my favorite parts of the Palm Sunday liturgy in El Paso, Texas, was watching people, mostly older women, take the piece of blessed palm they had received and turn it into something completely different. After the initial waving of palms and the opening prayer, we all sat to hear from Isaiah:
4 The Lord God has given me
a trained tongue,[a]
that I may know how to sustain
the weary with a word.
Morning by morning he wakens,
wakens my ear
to listen as those who are taught.
5 The Lord God has opened my ear,
and I was not rebellious;
I did not turn backward.
6 I gave my back to those who struck me
and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;
I did not hide my face
from insult and spitting.
7 The Lord God helps me;
therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame (NAB translation)
Some of the people in the pews would look at the palm they had received to imagine their new creation. As the Liturgy of the Word continued, I would watch people take their single piece to multiply it toward a new creation. Sometimes, I would hear quick zipping noises as one side of the palm was torn from the others and then again into multiple small strips. Most people made some form of a cross. Some created more intricate pieces in addition to the cross. Some would weave their additional strips around the cross to create an ojo de Díos (God’s eye) while others would shape and attach a rose.
The readings and homily continued in the background as these people seemed to take the words that were being spoken and interlace them as new expressions from a palm. Sometimes, a piece of palm would cut someone’s hand. They would reach for a piece of cloth or a tissue to apply pressure and stop the bleeding before continuing. Palms can cut. Palms can be used to scourge. As the fingers worked, the forming of the palm could yield a tool or a weapon—or simultaneously both, like the flint in Isaiah’s words.
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