Making Crosses for Palm Sunday While Sheltered at Home - Let's Get Creative!

Had this been a typical Saturday before Palm Sunday, our Altar Guild would have invited everyone to join us for a Palm Cross Making Workshop. This is a tradition that reaches way back in time, both for our congregation and many, many others. This year we’re under a shelter at home order because of the global pandemic. We are unable to meet, but we didn’t let that stop us from gathering online and getting really creative about fashioning crosses from whatever materials we could find around our homes.

We invite you to make crosses for yourself and your family this Holy Week.

If you have access to palms, great! There are a variety of resources that will help you learn the ancient tradition of palm cross folding.

Check them out and give it a try. See the diagrams at the end of this point. It’s fun!

If you don’t have any palms, we encourage you to get creative!

Other than palms, what could you possibly make “Palm” crosses out of? Here are some ideas we came up with: Palm-like things such as grasses, long leaves and branches, paper, cardstock, pipe cleaners, straws, pencils, napkins, neckties, yarn, fabric, glow sticks (don't snap then until Easter), playdough, bread dough, ribbon, sticks, stones…you get the idea! Whatever you find, fashion it into a cross by folding, weaving, cutting, stapling, gluing, tying, taping – whatever works!

Here’s how to get your cross(es) blessed.

You could as your priest or pastor to bless them remotely. Our congregation will host an online Palm Sunday service at 10:15am on our Facebook Page. We’ll offer a blessing for our crosses about three minutes into the service. Here’s the link if you’d like to join us. https://www.facebook.com/saintpaulsventura/?ref=bookmarks

As wonderful as the blessing of the church or a blessing from a priest or pastor is, we all are children of God and each has their own blessing to share. You might ask a child or a friend to bless your cross and pray for you.

How did our online meeting turn out?

Lots of wonderful ideas were shared. One of the moms made a simple construction paper cross. On hers she wrote "Hosanna." She gave one to her toddler, too. He wrote on it, poked holes in it and tore it - the way of the cross isn't an easy one. Both were beautiful. She also made a cross from four branches of rosemary tied together with kitchen twine and decorated with some beautiful yellow snapdragons from her garden.

Since we live in Ventura, California, several people were able to get palms or palm-like leaves or grasses to work with. Together we learned two of the methods for folding them into palm crosses. Those who didn't have any palms fashioned crosses from strips of paper. Some were large and some were small depending on the size of paper we had available in our homes. Oneperson shared a cross she made from paper using instructions she found on cutoutfoldup.com. It was beautiful and made from paper she said had been laying in a drawer for years. On the paper crosses, some wrote a variety of messages like "hope", "forgiveness", "compassion", and "peace."

One of our members shared a beautiful quilt hanging she made with a cross on it. So beautiful! That one’s sure to be a treasure for years and years to come.

Another member of our congregation, Karen Browdy, is an artist. She's been making crosses from a variety of materials as part of her Lenten experience. She shared with us photos of these beautiful and inspiring images. Each of the crosses was unique and made with love. We found that they evoked familiarity, reminded us of our Jesus' sacrifice for us, and emphasized the importance of symbols to help us as we work to hold on to our faith. We were especially touched by the

intricacy of each piece and the amount of time and love it must have taken to create them. We were especially moved by all the textures and layers which reminded us of our lives and of our faith journey.

We’d love to see what you create.

We can’t be physically present, but we can share and inspire one another. Share what you make and share your faith and encouragement in whatever ways you’re comfortable. We all need to support each other during this challenging time. Who knows, your creation may bring hope and encouragement at just the right time to someone who really needs it. Through you the Lord longs to reach out to the world. This is one of the many ways you can do that. Have fun! God bless you today and always.