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Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday

By Leo Racicot

I’m not much for religion, not a churchgoer. Every year though, I try to make it to Palm Sunday services.

I like the literal joy of the proceedings: the priests don bright red vestments for this celebratory day, the incense has a dual sensory effect; the smoke rising from the thurible to the sky of the church could, at times, be so thick, it would envelope the priest completely, the scent of it so strong, it felt like I was going to pass out but it would be a good “passing out”. I like seeing the long procession down the center aisle up to the altar, with congregants waving their lightsome palms. As a kid at Saint Patrick’s School, I well remember kids using palms as swords and old Sister Clare Cecilia trying mightily to corral them while not disturbing the services, not easy to do although, as a teacher, I observed that, with students, the immediate appearance of the principal was enough to strike the fear of God into the wildest of Indians, and into teachers. After all, it was the principal.

There was, and still is, something medieval about the ceremony, something close to primeval. The holy day does have its origins in Late Antiquity, the first Palm Sundays dating back to the 4th century. As a kid, I felt being in the midst of these rituals was a transport to another time, another world. I liked the solemnity of them, the seriousness on the face of the celebrants. It was, for me, a reflective, awe-inspiring Mass as well as a joy-filled one, and remains so. After Mass, as the congregation leaves the church and the bells ring out, I feel exhilarated, anointed, renewed…

I retain what might well be called a palm fetish. I like the tradition of parishioners being handed palms. And though church organizers now feel that one palm per person is plenty, I miss the days when whole bunches of them were handed out. Diane always liked when I could bring home several. and here in the kitchen, to my right, above me, are a few fronds framing a photo of The Last Supper which have been there for many years.  Our good neighbor, Anna, loved weaving palms into crosses and other religious symbols, I liked sitting with her at her kitchen table, watching her patiently weaving chotki (Eastern Orthodox prayer ropes), always the honeyed scent of baklava hovering nearby.   At Ms. Shea’s in Cambridge, sometimes when the grad school guys were leaving after their one-year tour-of-duty with Richard was over, they’d give me gifts as a sort of farewell; a book they thought I’d like, a stereo too big to fit in the back seat of their car. etc. My dear pal, John Dewis, as a goodbye, left me an elaborate palm frond hat he’d woven from many Palm Sunday masses. I still have and treasure it.

The funniest Palm Sunday I recall is the time an Arlington parish recruited, for lifelike effect, a male parishioner to play Jesus and a donkey on which for him to ride around the grounds and into the church. The beast was a tiny, charming, sweet-faced fellow and “Jesus” was, shall we say, a tad on the heavy side. After a while, it became apparent the donkey had had enough of fat Jesus on top of him and stopped in its tracks, refusing to budge another step. To the astonishment of the crowd, “Jesus” leaped down, literally picked the donkey up in his arms and carried him the rest of the way into the church. A memorable Palm Sunday, to say the least…

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Palm Sunday procession

Altar Boys lost in incense smoke

Jesus carrying a donkey

Palm hat made by John

Anna weaving palms at her kitchen table

Seen & Heard: Vol. 12

Obituary: Jurgen Habermas, 96, Thinker Who Heralded ‘Public Sphere,’ Is Dead – Last weekend different online sources I follow mourned the death of Jurgen Habermas with great affection and respect. While I was vaguely familiar with the name, I had no idea who he was, so when his obituary showed up in the March 16, 2026, New York Times, I read it with interest. Habermas was born in Germany in 1929 so grew up under the Nazi regime and its aftermath. He earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy and became a professor and author. In the early 1960s, he introduced the idea of the ‘public sphere,’ a place beyond the control of government where the free exchange of ideas could occur. The model he envisioned were the coffee shops of 18th century England and France where people could congregate to discuss politics and reach an understanding of issues that were of common concern. He also warned of the rise of nationalism and any attempt to forget or diminish the Holocaust. He said Germans had a responsibility to keep alive the memories of the suffering of so many by German hands.

Op-Ed: Social Media Is Hazardous by Tim Wu in the March 15, 2026, New York Times. A law professor and one of the foremost thinkers in the country about the role of the internet in our society, Tim Wu argues that social media companies hide behind the shield of free speech when they are instead a threat to public health. He does this in the context in the in-progress lawsuit against Meta (operator of Facebook and Instagram). The plaintiff’s theory in that case is that social media is intentionally designed to create compulsions and over use, regardless of the content provided. Wu suggests that even if this case goes in favor of the social media companies, it’s just a matter of time before someone holds them accountable for all the hard that they have done.

Blog Post: Living Madly: What Time Is It? – In her monthly Living Madly column on richardhowe.com last week, Emilie-Noelle Provost took on Daylight Savings Time, giving the history of where it came from and all the harmful consequences it has for people. I agree with Emilie. When I was younger, my daily habits, including when I woke up and went to bed, were more random. But as I got older, routines became more important. I get up and go to bed at the same time each day and turning the clock back or ahead messes with that. I’m not alone in feeling the disruption. Each morning I take our dog out for a predawn walk through the neighborhood. It’s always peaceful but in the weeks before the time change, we’d encounter other walkers, a good number of cars driving past, and lights on in most of the houses in the neighborhood. Since the clocks “sprung ahead” those things are mostly absent even though we’re out at the same time according to the clock. 

Earlier in life, I had a couple of memorable run ins with the time change. From May through October 1980, I was stationed at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, for army training. For whatever reason, Arizona did not follow Daylight Savings Time. So part of the time I was there, we were three hours ahead of the east coast and the rest of the time we were four hours ahead. 

The second story also comes from my time in the Army only this happened in Germany. One Saturday I took the train to Munich with some friends. We had a great day and evening and were on a late train home when about halfway through the trip the train stopped in the middle of nowhere. It just stayed stationary for exactly and hour and then resumed the trip. Later I learned that was because our trip straddled the time change and, given the Germanic devotion to good order, the train could not arrive at its destination and hour early which it would have had we not stopped. Yet for those of us aboard, it made for a long journey.

The final story was from my time as register of deeds. In 2001, I was on a subcommittee investigating new computer systems for the registries of deeds throughout Massachusetts. It would be a big contract and we had to get it right, so part of the process was to visit registries around the country that were using the systems offered by the top bidders for our project. One destination was the Cook County Registry of Deeds in Chicago. Coincidentally, the night we would be there the Chicago Black Hawks had a home hockey game and one of my colleagues had bought two tickets and invited me to go. I asked him what time. He said the game was on ESPN at 8pm so we should meet in the lobby at 7:30 and walk to the game. We did, but when we arrived at the United Center, the first period had just ended. It turned out that the 8pm start time for ESPN was for the east coast but the came was in Chicago on Central Standard Time so there was an hour time difference with the game starting at 7pm local time. I assume our tickets had the correct start time but I didn’t see mine until we got to the arena. I enjoyed the rest of the game and the opportunity to visit a famous sports venue, but one local practice I didn’t like was that fans were permitted to smoke in the concourse of the arena and many did, so if you went to get a hot dog, you were engulfed in cigarette smoke. I remember going to the old Boston Garden as a kid and sitting high up in a balcony. Back then, smoking was permitted in the seats. By the fourth quarter, I could barely see the court (or breath) because of the cigarette smoke haze that filled the place.

Spaces for Wise Phrases

Spaces for Wise Phrases – (PIP #101)

By Louise Peloquin

L’Etoile – March 1, 1926

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     The L’Etoile print shop on 24-26 Prince Street had no modern technology to set up newspaper layout. Innovative ways to “meubler l’espace” (furnish the spaces) had to be found as we saw in PIP #70. (1) Advertising was essential. (2)  Jokes and humorous quips also served the purpose. (3) No space was left vacant. Every line had to “speak.”

Could the following spaces for wise phrases inspire anyone today? 

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– Truth is a treasure of richness. We are, so to speak, its treasurers. We amass it only to spread it. (January 8, 1926)

– The cautious man keeps quiet when he has too much to say. (March 1, 1926)

 – Speak little about what you know, not at all about what you ignore. (January 4, 1926)

 – The more one has virtues and talents, the less one is aware of it. (January 8, 1926)

 – Be what you would like others to become. May your existence, not your words, be a declaration. (January 2, 1926)

– The ocean is in the image of great souls; however agitated they appear, the depths are always calm. (March 1, 1926)

– It is necessary to practice justice without expecting any recompense. (January 9, 1926)

– We are more separated by nuances than by declared oppositions. (January 9, 1926)

– Freedom does not imprison, and the shackles forged for it sometimes serve to spread its empire. (March 1, 1926)

– Only God must be immutable. Every other immutability is imperfection. (March 2, 1926) (4)

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• PIP #70:

 https://richardhowe.com/2025/05/20/echoes-and-musings/

 2) PIP #7:

https://richardhowe.com/2023/11/07/your-business-is-ours/#comments

3) PIP # 33:

https://richardhowe.com/2024/05/28/who-wants-to-sell-a-day-in-june/comment-page-1/#comment-100424

4) Translations by Louise Peloquin.

A lifelong journey with college mates by Marjorie Arons-Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

Heart the Lover by Lily King shares some themes with What We Can Know by Ian McEwan, the book I reviewed two days ago. They’re both set against the backdrop of academia. King focuses on four young people in college, their spirit and energy, academic pressures, dating issues, insecurities, crushes, parties, and card games (one of which gives the book its title.) McEwan’s principal characters are the professors, poets and researchers, also with their sexual relationships and neuroses.  Both books have clever repartee and multiple literary discussions. Even if you weren’t an English major, readers can be moved by Lily King’s talent for capturing both the exciting and daunting aspects of their own college years,

King’s narrator is a woman whose name (Jordan) we don’t learn until well into the book. She is romantically entangled with two of her three housemates. We move serially through the ups and downs of the relationships.

Heart the Lover then leaps into the characters in their middle age, where the four have chosen separate paths, but, in different ways, their ties to each other remain quite profound. Life has become more complicated. Their loves are more mature and take different forms, shaped by life’s realities (career, marriage, health, children). Characters become better communicators. They struggle to deal with their problems, not always with the most desirable outcomes.

King develops the novel in a linear way, the form more straightforward than the sophisticated and intriguing time-bending writing of McEwan. Though many of King’s story lines resonate with familiarity, she brings fresh perspective to those life inflection points. The author treats her characters tenderly, just as those characters, despite some rocky interactions in their twenties, come to treat each other 20 years later.  Heart the Lover is well conceived and well delivered. It’s a pleasing book that will hold your attention even if it doesn’t make your current list of top ten.