Palm Sunday in Jerusalem
Palm Sunday will never be the same again!
The Jerusalem Ecumenical Accompaniment team joined 1000s of pilgrims marching down from the Mount of Olives, through the Kidron Valley, and through St Stephen’s Gate into the Old City. It was a kaleidoscope of colour and sound. We were surrounded by people from all over the world, waving banners and palms and flowers and umbrellas, speaking different languages, wearing different robes and uniforms and clothes, singing songs of praise boisterously, melodically, meditatively. As one moved through the procession, one became aware at different times of drums or guitars, or loudhailers; and at other places dancers found space to express their joy in their own particular way.
Every so often, we found ourselves hailed by people we had met and had connected to during our time as Ecumenical Accompaniers here, which all added to this extraordinary feeling of being one with this enormous polyglot of movement and expression and surging life. The armed Israeli military spaced along the way like punctuation marks reminded us of the Roman military in the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem himself.
EAs join Valentina Maggiulli, EAPPI Local Programme Coordinator in the Palm Sunday Procession in Jerusalem 2007.
