Palm Sunday: in pictures

Joey the donkey leading the Palm Sunday procession through the streets of York Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

A boy carries traditionally decorated catkin twigs during a Palm Sunday procession in Lofer, Austria Photograph: Kerstin Joensson/AP

Actor Antonio Banderas sings in the Virgin de las Lágrimas y Favores (Virgin of Tears and Favours) procession in Malaga, Spain Photograph: Jon Nazca/Reuters

A contest for the tallest palm goes on in Lipnica Murowana, southern Poland Photograph: Jacek Bednarczyk/EPA

Residents carry traditionally decorated catkin twigs during a Palm Sunday procession in Lofer, Austria Photograph: Kerstin Joensson/AP

Clergy hold palm fronds as they circle the aedicule during the Palm Sunday procession at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's old city Photograph: Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images

A man carries his daughter on his shoulders as she holds a lit candle in front of Muhammad al-Amin mosque in Beirut, Lebanon Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP

Filipino devotees wave palm fronds as they wait for a priest to bless them with holy water at the Redemptorist church in Baclaran, Manila Photograph: Romeo Ranoco/Reuters

East Timorese Catholic women carry wooden crosses in a procession in Dili Photograph: Lirio Da Fonseca/Reuters

A Catholic girl waits for the blessing of palm fronds during Palm Sunday rites outside Santo Nino parish church in Manila, Philippines Photograph: Aaron Favila/AP

Pope Benedict XVI arrives in a car to celebrate the Palm Sunday mass in St Peter's Square, the Vatican Photograph: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images

Tribal women hold palm fronds at a mass in Dantilingi, India Photograph: Biswaranjan Rout/AP