Pastor’s Letter: April 6, 2025

Pastor’s Letter: April 6, 2025

4 Apr 2025 | Posted by: chadmin

Dear St. Philomena Parish Family,

Blessed 5^th weekend of Lent!  I hope this Lenten time has been a great time of growth for you…if there is still some growing to do, I want to encourage you to just keep going. I recently wrote a reflection column for the priests of our Diocese about the renewal of promises we make coming up at the Chrism Mass during Holy Week. As I was writing, I reflected on how we often have an ideal that is difficult to live up to—certainly as priests we want to be great witnesses to Christ, all the while knowing that we are fallen humans like everyone else. Yet, in the midst of daily living, Jesus just asks us to keep going. If we continue to fight for true growth in our hearts, we can know with confidence that Jesus is with us…and that united with Him our outcome is one of assured victory.  In the Christian life, as long as we continue the journey, we can know with joy what the end result will be!

Perhaps you can tell, I’m thinking ahead a bit to Holy Week, which starts next week with the celebration of Palm Sunday. Why do we do that? Why do we use palms? As the Missal for the Mass teaches, “On this day the Church recalls the entrance of Christ the Lord into Jerusalem to accomplish his Paschal Mystery” (Palm Sunday Introduction).  The entrance antiphon for the Mass recalls the cheers of the people greeting Jesus, “Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel. Hosanna in the highest” (Mt 21:9…hopefully we recognize quite a few words of that verse in the Holy, Holy Mass part as well! J). We then have an opening address: “Dear brothers and sisters, since the beginning of Lent until now we have prepared our hearts by penance and charitable works. Today we gather together to herald with the whole Church the beginning of the celebration of our Lord’s Paschal Mystery, that is to say, of his Passion and Resurrection. For it was to accomplish this mystery that he entered his own city of Jerusalem. Therefore with all faith and devotion, let us commemorate the Lord’s entry into the city for our salvation, following in his footsteps, so that, being made by his grace partakers of the Cross, we may have a share also in his Resurrection and in his life.”

After the blessing of the palm branches, a Gospel reading is read which recalls the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem. With great joy and fervor we laud Christ the Messiah along with the people in the reading. The world had waited for a Savior for so long—what a great joy to welcome him to the city that day! Of course we know how fickle our hearts can be…we know that soon we will have turned away from him and change our cheers into the harsh words, “Crucify Him!”  But not in this moment…no…in this moment we celebrate who Jesus is and that he is among us!

I’m sure that all sounds like you would expect…so where do the palm branches fit in? If you read the Gospel readings (Mt 21:1-11; Mk 11:1-10; Lk 19:28-40; Jn 12:12-16), you will hear of people carrying palm branches, as well as placing their cloaks and cut branches on the road…a way of “rolling out the red carpet” as we might say. Although palms are most commonly used, the Catholic Encyclopedia notes that in places where palm branches are not available, other branches can be used such as olive, box elder, spruce, or swamp willows. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “In pre-Christian times the palm was regarded as a symbol of victory. It was adopted by the early Christians, and became a symbol of the victory of the faithful over the enemies of the soul. [According to Psalm 92:13, “The just shall flourish like the palm tree”]. The palm, says Origen the Christian writer, is the symbol of victory in that war waged by the spirit against the flesh. In this sense it was especially applicable to martyrs, the victors par excellence over the spiritual foes of mankind; hence the frequent occurrence in the Acts of the martyrs of such expressions as “he received the palm of martyrdom.”

What do we do with the palms after Palm Sunday?  Continuing from the Catholic Encyclopedia, “The palms blessed on Palm Sunday were used in the procession of the day, then taken home by the faithful and used as a sacramental. They were preserved in prominent places in the house, in the barns, and in the fields, and thrown into the fire during storms. On the Lower Rhine the custom exists of decorating the grave with blessed palms.” In a similar way, The Catholic Source Book teaches, “After Palm Sunday, it has become tradition to display the palms, often in some artistic form (braided, woven, crosswise), often with a crucifix or sacred picture. For the following Ash Wednesday they may be burned, with the ashes then used for the beginning of Lent” (p.324).

So, I hope you have another fruitful week of Lent…and I’ll look forward to carrying the palm branches together next week as we enter Holy Week. May we take joy in knowing the Lord is with us…and may the blessed palm branches we’ll take with us be a yearlong reminder that Jesus the Savior is in our midst—truly a reason to celebrate all throughout the year!

In Christ,

Father Luke