Do you know how to fold a palm cross? Fr Michael shares a simple yet profound tradition of folding palm leaves into crosses, creating a meaningful keepsake that connects us to Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem to His ultimate sacrifice, serving as a reminder of our faith throughout the liturgical year.
Note: When using a palm leaf, remember to remove the firm middle stem, as it won’t bend into shape.
Transcript
Dear friends, Palm Sunday is coming closer. And today, I am going to show you how to make a palm cross. Like this. The cross we are making has a focus on the square in the middle. So there are a few steps we need to do. First, we need to get some really good and fresh palms leaves and get them ready! So when you have them ready, trim the ends. And make sure you prepare plenty of extras, because I am sure you love making more than one. And second, we are going to fold it. Hold your palm leaf up like this and find the halfway point of the palm, then bend it slightly, just take it out to the side and make it a right angle. So you are going to press it on to make a right angle. Then, you are going to take the bottom puff and fold it up like this, then take this top part and fold it back behind. And now you can see a little square, like that. So keep holding that there, and you are going to take the side now and put it around the back and keep holding it in place like that. You are going to take this side, and you can see a little pocket there; thread it through that pocket all the way until it locks the square in place. The square now looks nice and tight like that. Now, to make the arms of a cross, you take the side and put it back through the pocket, but not all the way at this time. It should be only a part of the way. That is one arm of the cross. To make the other arm, we take this and fold it back, just flip that behind like that. And now you can see both arms of the cross. To make the rest of it, you are going to take the bottom part here, fold it back and if you just take behind, so there is another little pocket that you can put that through, keep pushing it through, and grab the square through and then you turn you cross upside down. And here is your palm leaves crosses.