Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for Palm Sunday (B), Vigil

March 27, 2021

 

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

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.27.21_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry 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 the Church 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 choosingto make it the most faith-filled week of the year.

* Last year, that choice was somewhat taken out of our hands by civil and Church leaders who prevented us from going to Church out of fear of COVID-19, leaving us to do the best we could watching the liturgies virtually or by other means. This year we have a chance to make up for a year lost with even greater appreciation and love.

* We begin Holy Week tomorrow on Palm Sunday and in the Gospel at the beginning of Mass and the reading of St. Mark’s passion, we see six different ways we’re called to respond to Jesus with faith so that through the mysteries of this week he may fulfill his desire to make us holy.

* The first thing we learn is how to welcome The crowds laid their cloaks on the ground, lifted Palm Branches, and exclaimed: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” Their attitude shows us the type of exhilaration we should have to welcome Jesus this Holy Week.

* The second thing we learn is how to value Jesus appropriately. At the beginning of the Passion account, there is a huge contrast between Mary of Bethany, who anoints Jesus’ with more than a year salary’s worth of genuine aromatic spikenard out of love for Jesus, she valued him that much. Judas complained, saying that the perfumed oil could have been sold for 300 days wages and the money given to the poor. But Judas moments later went out to ask the chief priests what they would pay him to betray Jesus into their hands. The question for us is, is there any price for which we’d betray Jesus? Would we sell him for a million? Would we sell him for a trillion? Would we sell him if the devil were to promise us, as he promised Jesus in the desert, all the kingdoms of the world? If we’re going to live Holy Week — and life — the way God wants, we need to commit ourselves neverto sell Jesus out.

* The third thing we learn is about preparation. Jesus sent two of his disciples with meticulous instructions to prepare the Last Supper, concerning finding and following a man carrying a jar of water, then asking the master of the house where he goes where Jesus would celebrate the Passover with his disciples. That’s what they did. What type of preparations are we going to make? Are we going to be ready? Are we going to show up to the Upper Room with him for the celebration he eagerly desires to eat with us, as he prepares to change bread and wine into his b...