Palm Sunday processions, many featuring donkeys at the head, have taken place across the diocese to mark the start of Holy Week.
Holy Week is the name given to the week beginning on Palm Sunday and ending on Easter Sunday.
On Palm Sunday Jesus arrived in Jerusalem to crowds and cheers. His triumphant entry into Jerusalem has been celebrated on the Sunday before Easter since the first centuries of Christianity.
The crowds waved palm branches and covered his path with them. Churches remember this with crosses made from palm leaves and hold processions like the one that Jesus experienced - sometimes with a donkey, although at St Luke’s Holbeck, Leeds there was not one but two donkeys.
The traditional Palm Sunday procession at Ripon began in the Market Square and after a circuit around the square processed down Kirkgate and into the East end of the Cathedral.
At Gipton (below right), Leeds, the Revd Canon Kathryn Fitzsimons led the procession through the estate to the church
Passion plays
And at Bingley the events of Palm Sunday were re-enacted in costume with an afternoon procession through the town.
Meanwhile at Richmond in North Yorkshire the monthly fresh expression 'Fun Key' church held it's first Passion play with adults and young people re-enacting the events of Palm Sunday and Holy Week.
Many processions included singing and the waving of palm branches, remembering Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. In John’s Gospel Chapter 12, we read
“The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting,
“Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord— the King of Israel!”
John 12:12-13
Also below are processions at Hemsworth and at Mirfield.
