Pope Benedict on Palm Sunday

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI opened a busy Holy Week on Sunday with a Palm Sunday Mass that was dedicated to young people.

Palm fronds and olive trees swayed in the springtime breeze in St. Peter's Square as Benedict blessed the branches carried by the faithful, as is tradition on Palm Sunday.
Wearing embroidered red vestments and a golden miter, or bishop's hat, Benedict carried a large curled palm frond, as did the dozens of cardinals and bishops who joined him at the altar on the sun-soaked steps of the basilica.

Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and is the start of the church's Holy Week, which includes the Good Friday re-enactment of Christ's crucifixion and death and his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

"With this liturgical assembly we enter into Holy Week, to live the Passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ," Benedict said in an opening prayer. He told the faithful that the olive branches were symbols of Christ's peace, the palms symbols of his martyrdom.
Pope John Paul II made a tradition of dedicating Palm Sunday to the world's young people, and in his first year as pope Benedict continued that legacy.

After the Mass, young people from Cologne, Germany, who hosted last year's World Youth Day formally handed over the large wooden cross used during the church's international celebrations to a group of youngsters from Sydney, Australia, who are hosting the next gathering in 2008.
Benedict told them that for many, the cross on which Christ was crucified signified only his death and sacrifice.

"But Palm Sunday tells us that ... it is the cross that is the true tree of life," he said, calling the cross a symbol of poverty, peace and the universality of the church.

"The new weapon that Jesus gives us from his hands is the cross -- sign of reconciliation, sign of the love that is stronger than death," he said.