Prayers for Family

Palm Crosses  |  Palm Sunday  |  family prayer

Pondering the Palms that Pull Us into the Passion

By: Roxane Salonen March 29th, 2026

Roxane Salonen shares her memories of Palm Sundays past and explains how we can create lasting memories with our families this Palm Sunday. During a recent trip to Mexico, I was struck by the palm trees and branches. They are so different than anything I’ve ever seen in my ordinary life, whether growing up on the Plains in northeast Montana or living on the Prairie of North Dakota as I do now, not to mention visits to our lake-laden land next door, Minnesota. These trees and their branches are so exotic, and yet, as a Catholic, I find them still so familiar because of our yearly procession with Jesus on Palm Sunday. There’s much to ponder in those last words, but that’s not what came to mind as I sized up these beautiful adornments of the resort town where my husband and I stayed for five nights last month. Instead, they called to mind the years my father would place palm branches behind a Madonna and Child painting that hung above our television.