the pallium

The image of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, finding and carrying on his shoulders the lost sheep back to the fold – this is the symbol of the pallium.  It is a band of white cloth made from the wool of lambs and resting on the shoulders of archbishops, worn over the chasuble on very special and solemn occasions in which he presides.

Have you seen Pope Francis, the Pope of Mercy, carrying a real lamb on his shoulders and smiling? The perfect smile was just that, for the cameras, and it wouldn’t be as perfect if that lamb stayed on his shoulders for another 5 minutes.  Worst so, for an hour or two.  But the point was beautifully made.  

And so does the pallium. Solemnly, conveniently, and perfectly symbolically.

This cloth is made from the wool of two lambs offered on the feast of St. Agnes every 21^stof January after the solemn pontifical mass in St. John Lateran. (This is the same saint who before being martyred solemnly declared, “Jesus Christ is my only Spouse” which is why, romantically perhaps, the wool of these lambs is connected with the office of bishops who can only remove their episcopal rings during the Good Friday celebration when “the spouse has been taken away”.)  The lambs are then blessed and offered to the Pope. Then at some point, the lambs will be sheared and their wool will be made into a cloth for the pallium.  Then the pallium will be placed on a silver casket situated in the Confessio Petri, the chapel where the tomb of St. Peter is located.

Thus, the pallium became also a symbol of the Archbishop’s communion with the Pope and the communion of his See with the See of Peter – a participation in the mission of caring for the Lord’s flock.

Well, we all know how liturgists are, do we not?  They are the same yesterday, today and forever… . They have this fondness for filling up empty spaces with ornamentations and trimmings here and there and get away with them by explaining them later.  And so here comes a deluge of symbols and their meanings in this piece of woolen cloth, two inches wide and twelve inches long:

Four black crosses each in a circle, symbolizing the cardinal virtues of justice, fortitude, temperance and prudence – virtues which must adorn the life of the wearer;  

Two black crosses without the circle, placed in the hanging bands symbolizing Martha and her active life, and Mary and her contemplative life.

Then there are the three pins representing the three days in the tomb before Christ triumphed over death which is why the pins are in gold and further ornamented with jewels.  Do they also represent the three nails?  I wonder.

One can be lost in these barrage of symbols (some of which were eliminated in this article for want of space). But by now I believe one gets the real picture:  the good shepherd carrying the lost sheep, now found, on his shoulders, because,

Like a shepherd he feeds his flock;
    in his arms he gathers the lambs,
Carrying them in his bosom,
    leading the ewes with care. (Is. 40: 11)

That’s the pallium.

Last June 29, 2018, the Solemnity of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Most Reverend Romeo Lazo, D.D., Archbishop of Jaro, personally received the pallium from Pope Francis in Rome. It will be imposed on him by Most Reverend Gabrielle Giordano Caccia, D.D., the Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines, on November 17, 2018, on the Solemnity of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Patroness of the Archdiocese of Jaro, surrounded by the suffragan bishops, the clergy, the consecrated persons and lay faithful of the ecclesiastical province.