Saints Peter and paul, Booneville,Missouri

Palm Sunday

"The Lord God is my help; I shall not be disgraced." Today we celebrate the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and his acceptance of his passion. As followers of the Lord Jesus, we are called to share in his passion. We will suffer as he suffered.. yet in the knowledge that God will not abandon us. He is with us through all our suffering. As we share in the passion of Christ, so we hope to share in his resurrection.

St. Wenceslaus, St. Louis, Missouri

SELFLESS SUFFERING

Paul emphasizes this connection between suffering and glory. Jesus' self-emptying is a major theme for Paul. Somehow, Jesus put aside His Godhood, became human, truly suffered and died. It was not death itself, but Jesus whole life of obedience to God that brought Him to the Resurrection.

Each of us must decide what part we play in Jesus' passion. Perhaps we are the unrepentant, bitter thief. True faith leads us to hope, however, that we, like the other thief, will realize God is always ready to forgive. What an example of selflessness Jesus leaves us, as He transcends His own torments and offers the promise of salvation to a dying man.

Mary, Mother of the Church, St. Louis, Missouri

Palm Sunday

Today we enter into the holiest of weeks as we celebrate Palm Sunday. What we celebrate in a most profound way through our liturgies this week is the Paschal Mystery lived out by our Savior Jesus and which we all share in through each of our own lives. With the evening celebration of Eucharist on Holy Thursday, Lent ends and the Triduum begins. In the course of three days we will celebrate the one Paschal Mystery event. The Triduum has us enter into the event of Jesus' life, suffering, death and victorious resurrection. Each of the days help us focus in on the different aspects of that one Paschal Mystery. Holy Thursday, which commemorates the Last Supper, also remembers Jesus' command for us all to lovingly serve one another through the practice of the priest washing the feet of parishioners. Through this liturgical celebration we remember the center of Jesus' life which was His ministry of love and service.

Good Friday directs our attention and meditation to the aspect of Christ's suffering and ultimate death which won for us eternal salvation. To assist us in our prayer on this day, the Church will be open to all parishioners from midnight until the time of morning prayer, as we contemplate more deeply what Christ's death would have meant had He not risen from the dead. How different would your life been had our Savior's life ended with his crucifixion?

During the day on Holy Saturday we continue to focus on Jesus' death as we remember Him buried in the tomb, but, come the time of the Easter Vigil in the evening, our attention dramatically shifts to the aspect of Jesus' resurrection and the new life which enters our lives as a result.

As the Triduum calls us to deeply enter into the Paschal Mystery, we are called to recognize how we experience this Mystery daily in our own lives. The real mystery of it all is how can we experience suffering, quite often as a result of our loving and serving others, and subsequently experience new life? It's important to realize that in all of our sufferings and hardships we are to experience the reality of the Resurrection as well. The Paschal Mystery is one event and it never ends in the Cross, it always ends with the victory of the Resurrection!

I encourage us all to seriously consider participating in these liturgies of the Triduum. The effects of celebrating this holiest of times with your community can go far beyond what you anticipate.

Peace,

Deacon Mike

Seven Holy Founders, Affton, Missouri

In our modern culture, we celebrate Christmas as "the most wonderful time of the year", complete with songs, gifts, feasts, and even special Masses at midnight. But in the eyes of the Church, Christmas is only a secondary holiday: Jesus' birth is significant only because of His Passion, Death and Resurrection. This "Holiday" is so important that we actually take three full days to celebrate it: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, when we celebrate the Easter Vigil. In fact, the Church uses the word "TRIDUUM", literally meaning "three days" to refer to this, the highlight of our year. Through the liturgies of these days, we not only remember the historical events of Jesus' life, but we come together as a Church to enter into the mystery of our own death and salvation.

THE MASS OF THE LORD'S SUPPER on HOLY THURSDAY focuses on the gift of the Eucharist. In this Mass, the priests and deacon wash the feet of twelve members of the Parish Community, demonstrating the loving service to which Christ called us through His own example. A procession honors the Blessed Sacrament, the gift of God's own Body and Blood.

GOOD FRIDAY is the only day of the year on which we do not celebrate Mass. Instead, we come together to reflect on the Passion, to venerate the Cross, to kneel in common prayer and silent meditation.

THE EASTER VIGIL is the most important celebration of the Church year. On this night, we come together as a community of believers to share and proclaim our oneness in faith. In the service of light, the Easter Candle is blessed, lighted and carried through the Church as a sign of Christ conquering the darkness. The Liturgy of the Word reminds us once again of our history, of God's great mercy and goodness. The new members of our Church, the Elect, are immersed in the cleansing waters of Baptism, and we renew our own Baptismal promises with them. We also welcome the candidates who have already been Baptized but seek our Catholic faith through the Sacrament of Confirmation. Finally, we join together at Mass to proclaim the great victory of Christ's Resurrection.

While the Liturgies are slightly longer than usual, they are also rich in beauty and meaning. How wonderful it is to see our ENTIRE Parish Community, in unity with the Church, celebrating this "MOST WONDERFUL TIME" together!!!

St. Anthony of Padua, St. Louis, Missouri

Palm Sunday

We take ownership within our parish community of the same die-to-come-alive process that Jesus chose to change us from outcasts to heirs. How does this work? Let's being by echoing the prayer of the "good thief" in the passion account used in the Gospel:

"Jesus, remember me when you enter upon your reign." This is our goal, our hope, our journey, our endeavor.
Jesus responds, "I assure you: this day you will be with me in paradise." This message is for us too!

But how is this promise of Jesus fulfilled in us? We need to take to heart and put into practice the words of St. Paul, "You attitude must be Christ's: ...he emptied himself, ...obediently accepting even death, death on a cross." In other words, go and do likewise!

How? Through our persevering loyalty to the mind and teachings of the Church, modeling the words of the prophet Isaiah in the first reading about the Suffering Servant: "I have not rebelled, have not turned back."

Let's put it all together: We are assured of "paradise" (that is, resurrection, glory, heaven, the reign of God, the divine dominion in our lives) if we are willing to die to our own agendas and free ourselves from the enslavement of those old ways (habits, traditions, behaviors) that keep us from facing our corporate sin of omission (lack of liturgical participation, lack of initiatives of evangelization, lack of active volunteerism, and lack of welcoming respect).

We do this kind of dying when we choose the common good and embrace the mind of the Church and the heart of the Gospel.

This is a process of taking seriously (finally after 33 years!) the meaning and the implication of the Spirit-filled ecumenical council called Vatican II.

We want to live! To live we must die. To die we must let go of an image of St. Anthony's that is no longer meant to exist. In this year of the Spirit we are called to something new and wonderful and marvelous and fully alive! This is the triumph of the cross.

--Father Benet OFM

WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY..

It is immensely easier to suffer in obedience to a human command than to suffer in the freedom of one's own responsible deep. It is immensely easier to suffer with others than to suffer alone. It is immensely easier to suffer openly and honorably than apart and in shame. It is immensely easier to suffer through commitment of the physical life than in the spirit. Christ suffered in freedom, alone, apart and in shame, in body and spirit, and since then many Christians have so suffered with him. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

--compiled by Brother Richard OFM

St Francis of Asissi, Raleigh, North Carolina

THE OFFICE OF TENEBRAE

A singular feature of this service is that as the chants and readings progress, candles are gradually extinguished. Here, in the darkened church, we will extinguish all the lights until we are enveloped in complete darkness. For a brief time we remain in total darkness, meditating on the mystery of Christ's death and the apparent victory of darkness and evil in our lives. A loud noise (strepitus) startles us, symbolizing the earthquake at the time of the resurrection and the victory of goodness over evil. The candle then reappears and by its light we pray and leave quietly, anticipating the events to unfold in the Sacred Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil.

This service invites your participation and quiet reflection. Music and text are designed to speak symbolically of our lives identified in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

PASSION (PALM) SUNDAY

Passion Sunday is one of liturgical feasts people are most apt to remember from childhood. The concrete symbol of palms impressed us; the long Gospel was a reminder of the importance of the day and of the week that was beginning. As we celebrate this feast with our children, it is important to stress that we are remembering what Jesus did, not reenacting these events. We are an alleluia people, who know that our story will end in resurrection.

Make a centerpiece for the table with palms and your own branches. You might want to take the donkey from your Christmas creche and add it to the centerpiece. It will serve throughout the week as a reminder of Jesus' passion, and can be replaced with Easter eggs and new life decorations for Easter Sunday.

Place a piece of palm from church in each room of your house, or in your classroom, and pray for God's blessing in the coming year.

Take a Palm Sunday walk and remember Jesus' walk to Jerusalem. Look for signs of spring, such as pussy willows and spring flowers.

Visit the cemetery and put flowers or palm branches on the grave of a loved one, as well as of a person whose grave appears ignored.

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