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April 2, 2020By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press
There will be palms on Palm Sunday. But parishioners are prohibited from populating pews for Mass, as a pandemic precaution. Many parishes, however, will be proffering palms outside their churches, with appropriate social distancing.
Denise Boucher-Garofoli, owner of Boucher’s Good Books in Worcester, said only two of her 70 palms customers canceled their orders in the wake of virus restrictions, and they were small non-Catholic congregations.
Giving out palms is important to help people have hope, according to Mrs. Boucher-Garofoli.
“Easter is coming,” she said. “God’s still with us.” She said people of Jesus’ day spread palms before him, filled with hope in the new life he was bringing them, encouraged that he was with them.
The pandemic didn’t lead to fewer orders – in recent years about 70 Catholic and other churches, hospitals and nursing homes have purchased palms from Boucher’s, she said. Some also request “altar decorations” – palms shaped like fans – and about 20 order a paschal candle.
Patricia Quintiliani, owner of A Shower of Roses Religious Shop in West Boylston, said she doesn’t sell palms. She said a religious community and a couple of churches ordered paschal candles from her and picked them up before public Masses in the diocese were suspended.
Mrs. Boucher-Garofoli said she starts in January, personally calling each of her regular customers, and Catholic pastors new to a parish. She usually has to give their orders to her supplier, Palm Gardens in Alamo, Texas, the first week of February.
“But it was a big leap of faith” whether to have the ordered palms shipped, Mrs. Boucher-Garofoli said. With a one-week extension from Palm Gardens, her new deadline for confirming the trucking schedule was March 16 – which turned out to be the Worcester Diocese’s last day of public Masses.
“I hadn’t heard that anybody was backing out,” except the two small congregations, Mrs. Boucher-Garofoli said. But she wondered if some customers would, leaving her stuck with their bills. (Having extra palms on her hands hasn’t been a problem in the past; she gives them to her parish, St. John in Worcester.)
One church inquired about canceling, but, learning she’d already confirmed the shipment, agreed to keep the order, she said.
She said she gave that church the same suggestion she sent Bishop McManus, which Palm Gardens sent her – that churches distribute palms outside because of virus-induced restrictions.
She’d offered St. John’s the option of reducing its number of palms – at 4,500 her largest order – but her pastor, Father John F. Madden, accepted them all, she said. Her husband, John Garofoli, is to deliver them there tomorrow. Next week he is to deliver the paschal candle, which her family donates to the parish in memory of deceased family members.
Her family volunteered to help distribute the palms outside St. John’s this Sunday after the 11 a.m. Mass, which is to be live streamed. Father Madden said people can drive through to pick up palms between 1 and 3 p.m. and he also hopes to have outdoor adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
Mrs. Boucher-Garofoli has been encouraged by her supportive customers. One priest offered to pay for palms if another backed out, she said.
“We’ve got a lot of good priests in our diocese and we appreciate them,” she said, adding that they affirm her and her business. “It keeps you going. You know you’re doing God’s work” – but it’s a lot of work.
It’s a family endeavor.
Mrs. Boucher-Garofoli said her sister Michele Sargent, now deceased, used to hand-write all the bills for palms customers. Her brother Richard Boucher, of St. Stephen Parish in Worcester, spent last Friday and Saturday delivering palms around the Diocese.
“I’ve been doing this since two years after my father bought the store,” Mr. Boucher said. “That’s when he took on the palm thing.”
He said he was 16 years old in 1975 when his father, Louis Boucher, now deceased, started taking orders for palms. In those days it took five or six days to deliver them.
“My father would make a day of it,” and chat with customers, Mrs. Boucher-Garofoli explained. Two of her brothers and her husband helped. Now Richard Boucher can do it all in two days.
Numbers are down from the 150 or more orders of palms the store got in the 1970s and 1980s from throughout Worcester County, before online shopping became a serious competitor, Mrs. Boucher-Garofoli said.
Another change since her father’s days was her decision to stop getting palms from Florida.
“They used to come in burlap bags and sometimes snakes would come out of them and my father would run,” she said.
Among her customers is St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Dudley, which got 1,200 palms to distribute, fans and date palms for altar decorations, and a paschal candle bearing a Scripture passage announcing Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
Father Daniel E. Moreno, administrator, who is live streaming Masses and other celebrations on the parish website, Facebook page, and YouTube, said he’s trying to keep parishioners connected to St. Anthony’s and the universal church. He said he plans to distribute the palms in the church parking lot after the 4 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday Masses this weekend.
“We can still bring the decor and dignity” to the liturgical celebrations,” he said. “I wanted to keep the celebrations as planned, because if we cancelled them completely it (would) be like killing people’s hope, and hope is the last thing we can lose in these moments of darkness.”
A spokesman for Tally’s Church Supply in Cranston, Rhode Island, said they’ve distributed palms to Catholic churches for more than 100 years.
They now supply palms to churches throughout New England, including about 25 in Worcester County, he said.
He said that this year some orders were canceled from the Boston Archdiocese, but that, as far as he knew, palms were still being distributed elsewhere.
