Palm Sunday commemorates the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1–11, Mark 11:1–11, Luke 19:28–44, John 12:12–19) and opens Holy Week. All four Gospels record the event: Jesus riding into the city on a donkey in deliberate fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9, the crowds spreading garments and branches on the road, and the acclamation 'Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!' The palm branches, mentioned explicitly only in John's Gospel, gave the day its name; the other Synoptic writers mention 'branches cut from the fields' (Mark 11:8) or 'their cloaks' (Luke 19:36). The liturgical observance is ancient. The pilgrim Egeria, writing around 384, provides the earliest detailed description of a Palm Sunday procession in Jerusalem: the bishop rode from the Mount of Olives into the city while the people carried palm and olive branches, and children too young to walk were carried on their parents' shoulders, all singing 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.' This Jerusalem stational liturgy — procession from a site outside the city through the gates — became the model for Palm Sunday observances throughout Christendom. By the seventh century, the practice had spread throughout the Western churches. The Bobbio Missal (7th c., Gallican rite) attests Gallican influence on the introduction of palm blessing into Western liturgy, and the ninth-century Romano-Germanic Pontifical codified the full Western pattern of palm blessing, procession, and Passion Gospel that persists in recognizable form to this day.

Palm Sunday is unique among liturgical days in sustaining two contrasting moods within a single service. The BCP 2019 preserves this ancient pattern: the liturgy begins outdoors (or at a station apart from the main church) with the blessing of palms, the reading of the Triumphal Entry Gospel, and a procession into the church with hymns of praise — typically 'All Glory, Laud, and Honor' (Theodulph of Orléans, 820). But once the congregation enters the church, the tone shifts sharply. The Eucharistic Gospel is the full Passion narrative from one of the Synoptic Gospels (rotating by lectionary year: Matthew in Year A, Mark in Year B, Luke in Year C — John's Passion is reserved for Good Friday). The congregation that moments ago cried 'Hosanna' now speaks the words of the crowd calling for crucifixion. This liturgical reversal — from royal welcome to the demand for blood — enacts the central paradox of the Passion: the King who was received with palms was dead by Friday. The BCP's introductory rubric makes the theological point explicit: 'We who hail Jesus as King one moment, may in the next deny him, even joining with the crowd in shouting, "Crucify him!"' The color is red — for the Passion, not for Pentecostal fire. Some parishes use violet through the early days of Holy Week and switch to red for the Triduum, but Palm Sunday itself takes red because the Passion Gospel dominates the Eucharistic liturgy. The palms distributed to the congregation have generated their own devotional tradition: many Christians keep their palms throughout the year, and the custom of burning the previous year's palms to produce ashes for Ash Wednesday creates a beautiful liturgical cycle linking the two days.

Cuthbert was born around 634 in Northumbria. According to Bede, he entered the monastic life at Melrose after seeing a vision of angels carrying Aidan's soul to heaven on the night the bishop of Lindisfarne died in 651. He was trained under Prior Boisil at Melrose and then served as prior of Lindisfarne, where his gifts for preaching and pastoral care made him an effective evangelist among the rural Northumbrians.

Cuthbert traveled extensively through the hill country, visiting remote villages that no other priest would reach, preaching for days at a stretch, and earning the trust of communities that were still half-pagan. Bede emphasizes his personal warmth, his gift for reading the spiritual state of those he counseled, and his ability to comfort the distressed.

In 676, drawn to the contemplative life, Cuthbert withdrew to the tiny island of Inner Farne — a windswept rock in the North Sea — where he lived as a hermit for nearly a decade. He built a cell whose walls were high enough that he could see nothing but the sky and devoted himself to prayer and spiritual warfare. Visitors who came seeking counsel found him luminous with the presence of God.

In 685, King Ecgfrith and Archbishop Theodore persuaded Cuthbert — with great difficulty — to accept the bishopric of Lindisfarne. He served for two years, traveling his diocese with the same energy he had shown as prior, but his health was failing. On Christmas Day 686 he felt the onset of his final illness and returned to Inner Farne, where he died on March 20, 687.

Eleven years later, the monks of Lindisfarne opened his tomb and found his body incorrupt — a discovery that launched one of the most important cults in English Christianity. When the Vikings destroyed Lindisfarne in 875, the monks carried Cuthbert's body on a seven-year wandering before settling at Chester-le-Street and eventually Durham, where Durham Cathedral was built to house his shrine.

Cuthbert's years on Inner Farne were attended by remarkable communion with animals. Both the Anonymous Life and Bede record that sea otters dried his feet with their fur after he spent the night praying in the frigid North Sea. Ravens who had stolen thatch from his cell returned it in contrition after Cuthbert rebuked them. Eagles and other birds obeyed his commands. These animal miracles follow the Eden-restoration topos (the saint's holiness restoring prelapsarian harmony with creation) but are independently attested in two near-contemporary sources.

The discovery of Cuthbert's incorrupt body in 698 — eleven years after burial — was the foundational event of his cult. The body was examined again when the shrine was moved to Durham, and again in 1104, with the incorruption confirmed each time. The 1104 examination is documented by Symeon of Durham.

Bede records that Cuthbert foresaw his own death and predicted calamities that would befall Lindisfarne — later interpreted as the Viking attacks of 793 and 875. The seven-year wandering of the Lindisfarne community carrying Cuthbert's body (875–882) before settling at Chester-le-Street became one of the great narratives of English Christian survival.