Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for Palm Sunday (A), Vigil

April 4, 2020

 

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/4.4.20_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry once again and it’s a privilege to have a chance to ponder with you the consequential conversation that Jesus wants to have with us tomorrow on Palm Sunday and throughout this upcoming week that theChurch calls “holy.” It’s holy, first, because of all Jesus Christ did during these days, from the triumphal entry into his city, to his teaching in the Temple, to the Last Supper, to his prayer in Gethsemane, to his arrest, torture, crucifixion, preaching and death on Good Friday, to his rest in the tomb, and his glorious resurrection on the third day. It’s also called holy because it’s meant to make us holy, if we live this week the right way, if we enter into the mysteries we celebrate, if we internalize all Jesus won for us during these most holy of days, if we, in short, enter into a conversation with Jesus not just with thoughts or words but with our whole life. Holy Week is supposed to be our most faith-filled week of the year, but that requires our choosing to make it the most faith-filled week of the year.

* That’s obviously going to be more challenging to do in 2020 because of the various restrictions that have been placed on public worship due to the coronavirus. The liturgies of Holy Week are so powerful that, when we show up and are attentive, the palms, prayers, readings, music, homilies, smells and bells will normally bring us into the heart of the mysteries. Prioritizing the time to be there already predisposes us to receive what God wants to give. Just entering into the Church is a choice to leave the profane and enter the sacred. Such settings cannot be replicated. But this Holy Week we’re summoned to do the best we can. Such settings cannot be replicated. But this Holy Week we’re summoned to do the best we can. To live it well will require taking responsibility to give greater than normal cooperation with God’s grace, more focused prayer, and far greater interior and exterior preparation.

* The interior preparations are going to involve prayer and reading. There are some great books to help us. I would recommend Bishop Alban Goodier’s classic The Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ and Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth, Part II, Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, which could be read individually or, better, as a family. It would also be a time to watch some of the great movies about Jesus, which help us retrace the steps of Jesus’ life that led to the Upper Room, Calvary and the tomb, like Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ or the Visual Bible’s films on each of the Gospels. As most of us will have to watch the sacred ceremonies on television or on devices, learning how to use these media better to focus on Jesus through movies like these will make it easier for us to pray through them better as we watch the ceremonies.

* The exterior preparations are likewise important. They begin with trying to create, as best we can, sacred space in our home where we can block out distractions. The place should be cleaned and put in order, like a well-cleaned Church. We should dress up like we would if we were attending our parish. We should actively participate in the liturgies to the extent possible, praying aloud the responses, kneeling, standing, and sitting as we would when attending. Even though we will not be receiving Holy Communion, it would be good nevertheless to live a Eucharistic fas...