Pope Francis meets pilgrims as he drives around St Peter's Square following the Palm Sunday Mass on March 24, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican. Pope Francis lead his first mass of Holy Week as pontiff by celebrating Palm Sunday in front of thousands of faithful and clergy. The pope's first holy week will also incorporate him washing the feet of prisoners in a youth detention centre in Rome next Thursday, March 28. Credit: Getty Images
JERUSALEM (TheBlaze/AP) -- Hundreds of Christians marked Palm Sunday in the Holy Land, at the Vatican and around the world, the start of the Catholic Holy Week that concludes with Easter.
Crowds of faithful gathered at Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional site of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. Many waved palm fronds to symbolize how worshippers greeted Jesus over 2,000 years ago as he triumphantly returned to Jerusalem.
A young girl receives the Holy communion during a mass marking the Palm Sunday at the Church of Santa Cathrina in the Church of the Nativity Compound in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on March 24, 2013. Palm Sunday marks the triumphant return of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem when a cheering crowd greeted him waving palm leaves, a week before his crucifixion. Credit: AFP/Getty Images
Mostly Palestinian worshippers gathered in the Nativity Church in Bethlehem, traditional site of Jesus' birth, clutching olive branches and bouquets as they sung in praise. The Biblical city of Bethlehem is in the West Bank, a territory east of Israel that Palestinians seek for their future state. Israel retains military control there but Palestinians have a measure of self-rule over their own communities, including Bethlehem.
There are some 50,000 Palestinian Christians, a tiny minority among a mostly Muslim society. They must obtain military permission to enter Jerusalem to participate in religious ceremonies.
Roman Catholic kids hold branches and flowers during a mass marking the Palm Sunday at the Church of Santa Cathrina in the Church of the Nativity Compound in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on March 24, 2013. Palm Sunday marks the triumphant return of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem when a cheering crowd greeted him waving palm leaves, a week before his crucifixion. Credit: AFP/Getty Images
In a statement sent to reporters, Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi said some 60 percent of Christian applicants in Bethlehem and the Palestinian West Bank town of Ramallah had their requests rejected. But military spokesman Guy Inbar said they had issued nearly 20,000 permits so far, and only rejected the applications of 190 Palestinians.
Children hold palm branches during a mass marking the Palm Sunday at the Church of Santa Cathrina in the Church of the Nativity Compound in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on March 24, 2013. Palm Sunday marks the triumphant return of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem when a cheering crowd greeted him waving palm leaves, a week before his crucifixion. Credit: AFP/Getty Images
And Pope Francis celebrated his first Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square, encouraging people to be humble and young at heart and promising to go to a youth jamboree in Brazil in July, while the faithful enthusiastically waved olive branches and braided palm fronds.
The square overflowed with a crowd estimated by the Vatican at 250,000 people. Pilgrims, tourists and Romans jostled each other in an eager effort glimpse Francis as they joined the new pope at the start of solemn Holy Week ceremonies, which lead up to Easter, Christianity's most important day.
Pope Francis meets pilgrims around St Peter's Square following the Palm Sunday Mass on March 24, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican. Pope Francis lead his first mass of Holy Week as pontiff by celebrating Palm Sunday in front of thousands of faithful and clergy. The pope's first holy week will also incorporate him washing the feet of prisoners in a youth detention centre in Rome next Thursday, 28th March. Credit: Getty Images
Keeping with his spontaneous style, the first pope from Latin America broke away several times from the text of his prepared homily to encourage the faithful to lead simple lives and resist the temptation to be sad when life's obstacles inevitably come their way.
`'Don't let yourselves be robbed of hope! Don't let yourselves be robbed of hope!" Francis told the crowd, in an apparent reference to the economic difficulties people are grappling with as they try to find adequate work amid a poor job market in much of the world.
Faithful mass as Pope Francis delivers Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square on March 24, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican. Pope Francis led his first mass of Holy Week as pontiff by celebrating Palm Sunday in front of thousands of faithful and clergy. The pope's first holy week will also incorporate him washing the feet of prisoners in a youth detention centre in Rome next Thursday, 28th March. Credit: Getty Images
At the end of the two-hour Mass, Francis took off his red vestments, and wearing his plain white cassock and skull cap, climbed into an open-topped popemobile to circle through the excited crowd. He leaned out to shake hands, kissed and patted the heads of infants passed to him by bodyguards, and often gave children the thumbs-up sign.
His security detail seemed to be reluctantly dealing with this get-close-to-the-people pontiff, scrambling around the vehicle to pick up this child or that one. At one point, the chief bodyguard, Domenico Giani, was sent back to the mother of a child he had greeted to convey a message from the pontiff, and the ever-tense Giani broke into a smile after his mission was accomplished.
Pope Francis kisses 8-month-old Victoria Maria Marino from Sicily after delivering his blessing to the palms and to the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square during Palm Sunday Mass on March 24, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican. Pope Francis lead his first mass of Holy Week as pontiff by celebrating Palm Sunday in front of thousands of faithful and clergy. The pope's first holy week will also incorporate him washing the feet of prisoners in a youth detention centre in Rome next Thursday, 28th March. Credit: Getty Images
Francis even climbed down from the vehicle, kissed a woman in the crowd and chatted briefly with her, and another man in the crowd leaned over a barrier to squeeze the pontiff on a shoulder -- an unheard of familiarity in the previous pontificate of the reserved Benedict XVI.
(EDITORS NOTE: A fisheye lens was used for this photo) A view of St. Peter's Square during Palm Sunday Mass held by Pope Francis on March 24, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican. Pope Francis lead his first mass of Holy Week as pontiff by celebrating Palm Sunday in front of thousands of faithful and clergy. The pope's first holy week will also incorporate him washing the feet of prisoners in a youth detention centre in Rome next Thursday, 28th March. Credit: Getty Images
In keeping with his stress on giving examples of humility, Francis kissed the hand of an elderly woman who had outstretched an arm to him.
`'There is no doubt that there will be a new spring for the church, a renewal" with this pope, said Sister Emma, an Argentine nun in the crowd.
Pope Francis conducts Palm Sunday Mass in St Peter’s Square on March 24, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican. Pope Francis lead his first mass of Holy Week as pontiff by celebrating Palm Sunday in front of thousands of faithful and clergy. The pope's first holy week will also incorporate him washing the feet of prisoners in a youth detention centre in Rome next Thursday, 28th March. Credit: Getty Images
Palm Sunday recalls Jesus' entry into Jerusalem but its Gospel also recounts how he was betrayed by one of his apostles and ultimately sentenced to death on a cross. About.com has more:
On Palm Sunday Christians celebrate the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, the week before his death and resurrection. For many Christian churches, Palm Sunday, often referred to as "Passion Sunday," marks the beginning of Holy Week, which concludes on Easter Sunday.
The Bible reveals that when Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowds greeted him by waving palm branches and covering his path with palm branches. Immediately following this great time of celebration in the ministry of Jesus, he begins his journey to the cross.
The biblical account of Palm Sunday can be found in Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:28-44; and John 12:12-19.
This year, Francis presided over the Mass at an altar sheltered by a white canopy on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica.
Catholic faithfuls participate in a Palm Sunday procession in Managua, Nicaragua, on March 24, 2013. Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week, and commemorates Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, welcomed by crowds waving palm branches, before his arrest, trial, crucifixion and resurrection. It is traditionally marked by a procession and special mass. Credit: AFP/Getty Images
Recalling the triumphant welcome into Jerusalem, Francis said Jesus `'awakened so many hopes in the heart, above all among humble, simple, poor, forgotten people, those who don't matter in the eyes of the world."
Cardinals, many of them among the electors who chose him to be the Roman Catholic church's first Latin American pope, sat on chairs during the ceremony held under hazy skies on a breezy day. He quoted from Benedict when he told the cardinals that while they are `'princes" of the church, their leader is the crucified Christ, a further admonition against attachment to temporal power.
Worshipers march along a street after attending Palm Sunday Mass on March 24, 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. South Americans are celebrating the election of Pope Francis from neighboring Argentina and Brazil holds more Catholics than any other country. Credit: Getty Images
The pope ticked off a litany of evils afflicting the world, including wars, `'economic conflicts that hit the weakest" as well as corruption. In the final stretch of Benedict's papacy, the Vatican was embarrassed by a leak of documents from the papal apartment, indicating corruption, ambition and rivalries among upper ranks of the Holy See's management.
Francis told an off-the-cuff story from his childhood in Argentina. `'My grandmother used to tell us children, `burial shrouds don't have' pockets," the pope said, in a variation of `'you can't take it with you."
A nun prays as Pope Francis delivers his blessing to the palms and to the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square during Palm Sunday Mass on March 24, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican. Pope Francis lead his first mass of Holy Week as pontiff by celebrating Palm Sunday in front of thousands of faithful and clergy. The pope's first holy week will also incorporate him washing the feet of prisoners in a youth detention centre in Rome next Thursday, 28th March. Credit: Getty Images
Since his election on March 13, Francis has put the downtrodden and poor at the center of his mission as pope, keeping with the priorities of his Jesuit tradition.
In his homily, Francis said Christian joy `'isn't born from possessing a lot of things but from having met" Jesus. That same joy should keep people young, he said.
"Even at 70, 80, the heart doesn't age" if one is inspired by Christian joy, said the 76-year-old pontiff.
Pilgrims gather to hear Pope Francis deliver Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square on March 24, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican. Pope Francis led his first mass of Holy Week as pontiff by celebrating Palm Sunday in front of thousands of faithful and clergy. The pope's first holy week will also incorporate him washing the feet of prisoners in a youth detention centre in Rome next Thursday, March 28. Credit: Getty Images
The pontiff said he was joyfully looking forward to welcoming young people to Rio de Janiero for the Catholic Church's World Youth Day. So far, that is the first foreign trip on the calendar of Francis' new papacy. `'I'm coming in July," Francis said in remarks after Mass from the esplanade of the basilica.
During Mass, at the point when the Gospel recounts the moment of Jesus' death, many faithful knelt on hard cobblestones paving the square, and Francis knelt on a wooden kneeler.
A few young olive trees were inserted in dirt placed around the central obelisk in the square.
A view of St. Peter's Square during Palm Sunday Mass held by Pope Francis on March 24, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican. Pope Francis lead his first mass of Holy Week as pontiff by celebrating Palm Sunday in front of thousands of faithful and clergy. The pope's first holy week will also incorporate him washing the feet of prisoners in a youth detention centre in Rome next Thursday, 28th March. Credit: Getty Images
Holy Week will see at least one break from tradition with this new papacy. Instead of washing priests' feet in a basilica in a symbolic gesture of humility on Holy Thursday, Francis will wash the feet of young inmates at a juvenile detention center in Rome. Other appointments in public will include the Way of the Cross procession at the Colosseum on Good Friday night. Next Sunday, Francis will celebrate Easter Mass in the square.
