Ramos

“Having heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took palm branches and went out to meet him shouting: Hosanna!”

In the streets and squares of Oleza, the echo of the horns, twin bells and bugles still remains, and floating among the aroma of the orange blossom the voices of those “hoarse angels” who every night of the previous week have gone announcing to the feet of windows and balconies that Easter is approaching.

Dawn. And in each house, some child waits for that popular Oriolan saying to be fulfilled, “Palm Sunday, he who does not premiere has no hands”, and with his new suit, carry a palm or an olive branch in the procession.

If we were to look for antecedents to the way to commemorate Holy Week in Orihuela, we should look in three directions that converge in said celebration. First of all, in the liturgical aspect. In the second, in what we now understand as processions, and third, in the images that are carried in the passion parades, whose denomination has undergone several changes over the centuries, such as insignia, effigies and steps, currently . As well as, in the representations or stagings that showed moments of the Passion of Christ.

In the first aspect within the liturgy of Holy Week we must set our eyes on the thirteenth century, at the time when the king Alfonso X El Sabio, in a letter dated in Córdoba on May 27, 1281, reiterated the pre-eminence of the parish of El Salvador and Santa María de Orihuela over that of Saints Justa and Rufina, emphasizing that the former should be commemorated and bless the bouquets, just as it had been done.

In relation to the blessing and the procession of the branches, on the Sunday in which the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is commemorated, after this first note, we must place ourselves in Orihuela in the fifteenth century. It was the time when its main Church of San Salvador and Santa María held the rank of Collegiate Church. Within the liturgical acts of Holy Week in that century, we know through an article published by the canon maestrescuela Julio Blasco, in the “Tháder” on March 26, 1896, about the ceremonial that took place on Palm Sunday, before, during and after the blessing of the branches, and even the itinerary of the processional procession, before and after it. . Subject on which our remembered friend Aníbal Bueno already gave us news, in “Oleza”, in 2015.

For this, after the canonical hours of Prima and Tercia had been sung, the Cabildo and other clergy left the Collegiate Church in procession, preceded by the large silver cross and candlesticks carried by children, while the bells rang as in great solemnities. The procession was heading towards the place where the market was held at that time. There an ornate stage had been built on which the palms and branches to be blessed were placed, a lectern and benches for the capitulars and the rest of the clergy. Once settled, the water was blessed and the clergy and the people were sprinkled, proceeding later to the blessing of the palms and branches, and the preaching of a sermon. After which, the procession was organized in the direction of the city gates, which were left clear giving way to the procession, which headed towards the Collegiate Church where the mass was celebrated.

Upon arriving at the temple, the Cabildo took their seats in the choir and the ministers changed their ornaments that until then were green for others of black color, just as those who had to sing the “Pasio” did.

On the other hand, the continuity of the liturgical celebration of the branches is evident in the municipal documentation. Specifically in the accounts of the same, which refers to the acquisition of palms during the sixteenth century in the town of Elche. Thus, in 1538, an expense of 4 pounds was contracted for the purchase of “les rams de palma pera lo diumenge de rams”, reaching ten pounds twenty years later. On those dates, the Palm Sunday sermon continued to be preached from a stage outside the church, then installed on the edge of the bridge.

The blessing of the branches and the procession on the Sunday of said festivity, will survive in the liturgy, once the Collegiate Church is erected in the Cathedral, as verified in the constitutions that established the ceremonial in it. At the dawn of the 17th century, according to what he wrote in 1604, the Master of Ceremonies Luis Domenech in the “Manual and Instruction of things that the chief sacristan and the other sacristans and bell ringers must observe and keep”, the blessing was carried out inside the Cathedral. For this, a table was placed on the main altar with the branches and palms that were going to be blessed and distributed to the capitulants and parishes, beginning the procession leaving through the Puerta de Loreto, heading east towards the Puerta de la Chains or “longeta”. The Cabildo remained outside that place, the clergy and parishes entering the temple, the sacristan closing the door after it. Next, the Cabildo entered the temple in procession, to occupy their seats in the choir, preaching the sermon and celebrating the mass.

Currently the blessing of the palms takes place in the Church of Santas Justa and Rufina, going in procession to the Cathedral for the celebration of mass.

Later, some monuments of Holy Thursday appear adorned as Gabriel Miró recounts in “The Leper Bishop” with “clumps of white palms from Sunday, vases of roses and wheat ears, and the mayos of pale wheat with their ribbons of girls’ rowdy hair.” While many palms remain lit throughout the year in the windows and balconies of the houses of those children who debuted their costume on Palm Sunday.