With Palm Sunday we initiate Holy Church’s final self-emptying before her liturgical death with the Lord during the Sacred Triduum and her resurrection with Him at Easter. At the Lord’s arrival in Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday, the people waved branches and sang Ps 118, about the coming of a Davidic Priest-King-Messiah, as they would have at the autumn harvest festival of Booths or Tabernacles. Tabernacles looked back to how the People lived in the wilderness for 40 years, and looked forward to the return of the glory cloud of God’s Presence to the Temple. Before Mass, Father blesses palms branches for our processions. In other places, such as Rome, olive branches are blessed. Our Eastern brethren often use pussy willows. In the traditional Roman Rite the priest blesses the palms, saying: