Don't get me wrong. I like Palm Sunday.

Except for one or two things. Maybe three things.

First thing: the Gospel reading is soooo long and we stand for the whoooole thing. This year, chapters 14 & 15 from Mark.

The other thing I've never liked, our part. I mean, the lines that we people recite. It's interactive, you know, with three folks up front reading their parts and the congregation reads what was termed this year "the chorus" in our missalettes. No matter what they call it, the gist of our lines is the same: we demand Christ's crucifixion.

Now, I know that I'm responsible for Christ's death. I mean, my sins. But it's the implied separation between those up front and the rest of us that I struggle with. Especially the priest ... who plays the part of Christ in our little antiphonal recitation of the Gospel.

The final thing wasn't a problem this year: bad readers up front. Sometimes I like the Jersey accent and sometimes I don't. There's something about Jersey Catholics, 'though, their accents seems particularly strong. But this year, those speaking the parts of the Narrator, the Voice and the Christ were pleasant to listen to.

When I returned to church at the first of the year, I noticed a couple of things missing from the front. Father had removed the two angel statues which had flanked the central Crucifix. He also removed their wall-mounted pedestals as they were positioned above the altar, just level with Christ's feet. And Father removed the palm trees around the sanctuary.

The angels I can do without, fine to remove them. But the palm trees always reminded me of Israel (see the picture at the top of this blog ... mt. of the beatitudes in galilee). We joined this church within six months of returning from a tour of the Holy Land and the palm trees were one of the few decorative touches that appealed to me. The life-sized statues of the saints ... ah, not so much.

So long story, short, I was pleased to see that, on Palm Sunday, Father placed several palm trees around the sanctuary. Let's hope they stay because of what they remind me of.