Christians in Palm Sunday parades
Christians of all denominations celebrated Palm Sunday yesterday.
On the day, Christians commemorate the entrance of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, where palm branches were placed in his path before his arrest on Holy Thursday and his crucifixion on Good Friday. In the Catholic Church, it marks the beginning of a holy week, the final week of Lent.
In Blantyre, Catholics from St James Parish in Chilomoni and Limbe Cathedral carried palm tree branches while singing ‘A Yesu polowa mu Yerusalemu/ Anamuyimbira Timtame’.
In Limbe, congregants at Katimba Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) hired a lorry and sound equipment and, in their droves, covered the length and breadth of Limbe roads while singing songs of praise for Christ.
They held a green rope which people held from end to end in line with traffic rules that stipulate that people on parade use one lane and leave the other to other road users.
When they stopped at Limbe Market, on-lookers cheered them on.
In Zomba, Catholics sang and ululated as they prepare to enter into the Holy Week.
In the capital, the CCAP Livingstonia Synod Lilongwe congregation in Area 47 held what it called a ‘Donkey Parade’ to mark Palm Sunday.
Reverend Nase Chunga said they took advantage of the event to share the gospel of Christ with other people.
“We tried to reconstruct what happened over 2,000 years ago when Jesus Christ rode on a donkey and triumphantly went into Jerusalem,” he said.
He called on people to turn to God at a time the country and the whole world are facing challenges, notably cholera cases, the Covid pandemic, economic meltdown and wars.
“We are living in a time when there is so much corruption and infighting in various institutions. This is the right time to believe more in God and know that there is liberation is Jesus Christ,” he said.
The church’s second deputy session clerk Dina Longwe urged people to be calm in the face of uncertainties in the world.
The CCAP Livingstonia Lilongwe congregants paraded from the church’s building in Area 47, passing through Area 18, to Nankhaka Prayer House.
Mathews Kasanda is a journalist who holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from University of Malawi (The Polytechnic).
In 2015, Media Institute of Southern Africa awarded him the Best Print Media Education Journalist of the Year accolade.
He joined Times Group Newsroom in September 2019.
