Palm Sunday alfombras

Early Palm Sunday morning I got up at 4:15, showered, drank a large cup of coffee, and sat and read before going out to help prepare the alfombras, the carpets of colored saw dust, for the Palm Sunday procession which starts a few blocks up the hill from where I live.

Base community members and others were there, carting the bags of sawdust, spreading them with brooms, smoothing the carpets by hand, or preparing the special colored designs.

People from all walks of life where there – well off and poor, children and adults, and in the block we did people from Honduras, the US (me), and Spain (Sor Inez, a Franciscan sister).

In a few hours the Palm Sunday procession will go down the street and the donkey with “Jesús” will walk over it and scatter the sawdust. A little work of art for a few moments, to give glory to God.

After helping with the carpets I went home to get ready for Mass. I read a reflection on Holy Week by Timothy Radcliffe, OP, from his book Just One Year: A Global Treasury of Prayer and Worship (Orbis, 2006).

“Faced with the powers of his time, Jesus made signs that spoke of the ultimate triumph of meaning, Often what we are able to do may look little more than signs, but they speak of the coming of the Kingdom, and help to bring it about. Small signs are the signature of God. Jesus says that whatever we do to the least of his brothers and sisters we do to him. No sign is too small. Every small act for justice is a little window for God’s grace, with consequences that exceed all that we can imagine or ever know.”