March 29, 2026 • 15 mins
BLESSING OF PALM AND HOMILY OF PALM SUNDAY
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SPEAKER_00 (00:06):
It's the beginning of Lent.
We have prepared our hearts bypenance and charitable works.
Today we gather to herald withthe whole church the beginning
of the celebration of our Lord'sPassion, His sacred mystery,
that is to say, His Passion andResurrection.
(00:27):
For it was to accomplish thismystery that he entered his own
city of Jerusalem.
Therefore, with all faith anddevotion, let us commemorate the
Lord's entry into the city forour salvation, following in his
footsteps, so that being made bythe grace of partakers of the
(00:47):
cross, we may have a share inhis resurrection.
Let us pray.
Almighty and everlasting God,sanctify these branches.
I invite you to hold up yourpalm branches.
(01:08):
We'll go around.
We're going to process theentrance.
You already bless the side, I'llgo the outside.
We will process and bless thepalm as we come around.
So that being made partakers inthe cross of Christ, we also
share his resurrection.
We ask the Lord to bless us wholives and reigns forever and
(01:29):
ever.
Amen.
After the reading of the gospel,the palm will be blessed.
When Jesus and his disciplesdrew near Jerusalem and came to
Bethpage on the Mount of Olives,Jesus sent two disciples, saying
(01:49):
to them, Go into the villageopposite you, and immediately
you will find an ass tetheredand a colt with her.
Untie them.
Bring them here to me.
If anyone should say anything toyou, reply, the master has need
of them.
Then he will send them at once.
(02:10):
This happened, so that what hadbeen spoken to the prophet
Zechariah will be fulfilled.
Say to the daughters of Zion,Behold, your king comes to you,
meek and riding on an ass, and acolt, the fowl of a beast of
burden.
(02:31):
The disciples went and did asJesus had ordered them.
They brought the ass and thecolt, and laid their cloaks upon
it, and he sat upon them.
The very large crowd spreadtheir cloaks on the road, while
others cut branches from thetrees, strewn them on the road.
(02:52):
The apostles and the crowdspreceded him, and those
following kept crying out andsaying, Hosanna to the Son of
David, Blessed is he who comesin the name of the Lord.
Hosanna into the highest.
And when he entered Jerusalem,the whole city was shaken and
asked, Who is this?
(03:14):
And the crowds replied, This isJesus, the prophet from Nazareth
in Galilee, the gospel of theLord Jesus Christ.
As we process, let us sing oursong of welcome.
(03:36):
How does Jesus enter our lives?
Triumphantly, carrying thecross, on the cross, suffering,
or risen?
(03:57):
The paradox of the cross hits ustoday dearly.
The prophecies come true in thewords of the evangelists.
Riding on a donkey, not comingin victoriously on a horse,
(04:20):
coming with his disciples,people waving branches, the
prophecies come true.
Up until he's brought beforePilate, the prophecies are
coming true.
Even as he's placed in the tomb,the prophecies are true.
(04:45):
How do we allow Jesus to enterour lives?
He came to be one of us, andit's very significant for us to
pull him into our lives.
Whether we are suffering,whether we have relatives who
(05:06):
are suffering, whether we watchthe world as it suffers, it's
important for us to pull Jesusinto our lives, even if we have
to say, off of the donkey,because he is with us.
The resurrection proves that,proves that the scriptures were
(05:30):
fulfilled.
And what does his life show us?
That his message of loveprevails.
Love will conquer all.
Oh, there are so many timesthrough the history of the
world.
(05:51):
Persecution and bombings andterror and holocausts took
place.
A lot of suffering throughoutthe world's history.
Children, men and women,innocent people suffering, and
yet his life shows us, even ashe suffered with us, that love
(06:19):
does conquer all, that he willmake the final gesture, calling
us to himself and walking withus.
Paul refers to him as Lord, buthe also reminds us that this
(06:39):
Lord, raised by God, sent to us,exalted to the highest heavens,
on earth, was crucified anddied.
And not only did he die, he diedan ignominious death on the
cross, a disgusting death.
(07:02):
As any of us who have visitedthe Holy Land know, the route to
Calvary was marked by severalevents that we piously recall
Veronica, the sirene, the falls,the soldiers, the spitting, the
(07:26):
women who came to his side.
This is God's Son on earthwalking for us, giving us the
route to follow to love.
Because that's what conquerseverything.
Love.
He rose from the dead out oflove.
(07:50):
As we look at the Holy Landtoday, tears have to come to our
eyes when there are noprocessions, there are no
Hosannas in the streets of ViaDolorosa.
It's bombing, it's tears, it'sdisaster that the people, our
(08:10):
sisters and brothers of the HolyLand, are commemorating.
And inside their churches,they're hovering as they hear
the same words we heard today.
And they're seeking shelter andprayers, afraid to walk in
public as they have forcenturies since the Franciscans
(08:32):
became the administrators of theHoly Land, walked through
centuries carrying palmbranches, singing hosannas,
optimistic songs of praise.
But even today, 2016, 2026 yearsafter that event, there are no
(08:54):
hosannas in the streets.
There's disaster in the streets.
And the disaster is due to humanfailing.
Unable to love, unable to bringthat message of love into the
lives of each other and into theworld.
(09:15):
The message that has tainted theHoly Land is one of power and
greed and hate.
And yet God the Father sent hisson to conquer all that and be
victorious with love.
(09:37):
The message goes on.
And you and I are responsiblefor keeping that message alive.
Just as our sisters and brothersin the Holy Land are responsible
for keeping that message alive.
And the message is the sadnessof the Holy Land, the tears, the
(10:00):
bombing, will be gone one day.
And peace will prevail.
And doesn't that seem odd?
Doesn't that seem almostimpossible as we read the
headlines and see the headlinesevery day?
And yet the message of JesusChrist, because of Easter, will
(10:24):
prevail.
The message is love.
But it doesn't look that way.
And this isn't unique for thetwenty-first century.
This has been going on forcenturies.
The crusades, the invasions, allof it through the Holy Land, the
(10:50):
most holy of earth, wasdesecrated and is still being
desecrated.
Bring the Holy Land into our ownlives.
We're invited this week to bepart of the Passion of Jesus
Christ, to sit with Hisdisciples at the Last Supper, to
(11:14):
be present for the washing ofthe feet, all of it as a way of
sucking in the pain, the hate,the terror to give rise to the
message love.
We do this to walk with Christ,to put our own souls in the
(11:39):
hands of Jesus, to bring Himinto our sufferings, whether
it's family, international,whether it's marital, whatever
suffering we are, as we pray forthose who are ill, as we pray
for those who have died, we praywith hope, because this week
(12:03):
gives us that hope.
We travel with Christ, we'llcarry his cross, we'll kiss the
cross, we'll watch the washingof the feet, but it all leads to
the resurrection.
Friday will be the most solemnday of our year.
(12:25):
I remember as a child, my motherwould remind us that this day,
Friday, is the day Christcarried his cross, and we
remember his suffering.
And what she would say to us aschildren, you can go outside,
(12:48):
but only to walk to church.
No jumping, no playing, no ballgames in our neighborhood,
predominantly Italian.
We all observe that.
Because her philosophy was thisis the day Christ fell on the
(13:12):
earth three times.
This is the day his life madeour earth sacred.
And his message of love stayswith us as we go through the
falls of our own lives, as we gothrough the squabbles and the
(13:32):
angers and the hurts of our ownlives and the prejudices of our
own lives.
We fall with Christ to rise withhim.
How do we travel with Christ?
How do we allow Christ to travelwith us?
Are we spectators orparticipants in his passion?
(13:55):
If we imitate him, we will knowthe resurrection.
If we will ignore him, we willnot understand Easter.
His suffering, his cross, histears, his spit on his face
(14:16):
helped us to accept God's willin our own lives.
That pain, that death, remindsus that he did it first for our
sakes, and that we can continuethe message of hope, of love,
(14:46):
and of Easter, if we walk withChrist and bring him into our
lives.
It's the beginning of Lent.
We have prepared our hearts bypenance and charitable works.
Today we gather to herald withthe whole church the beginning
of the celebration of our Lord'sPassion, His sacred mystery,
that is to say, His Passion andResurrection.
(00:27):
For it was to accomplish thismystery that he entered his own
city of Jerusalem.
Therefore, with all faith anddevotion, let us commemorate the
Lord's entry into the city forour salvation, following in his
footsteps, so that being made bythe grace of partakers of the
(00:47):
cross, we may have a share inhis resurrection.
Let us pray.
Almighty and everlasting God,sanctify these branches.
I invite you to hold up yourpalm branches.
(01:08):
We'll go around.
We're going to process theentrance.
You already bless the side, I'llgo the outside.
We will process and bless thepalm as we come around.
So that being made partakers inthe cross of Christ, we also
share his resurrection.
We ask the Lord to bless us wholives and reigns forever and
(01:29):
ever.
Amen.
After the reading of the gospel,the palm will be blessed.
When Jesus and his disciplesdrew near Jerusalem and came to
Bethpage on the Mount of Olives,Jesus sent two disciples, saying
(01:49):
to them, Go into the villageopposite you, and immediately
you will find an ass tetheredand a colt with her.
Untie them.
Bring them here to me.
If anyone should say anything toyou, reply, the master has need
of them.
Then he will send them at once.
(02:10):
This happened, so that what hadbeen spoken to the prophet
Zechariah will be fulfilled.
Say to the daughters of Zion,Behold, your king comes to you,
meek and riding on an ass, and acolt, the fowl of a beast of
burden.
(02:31):
The disciples went and did asJesus had ordered them.
They brought the ass and thecolt, and laid their cloaks upon
it, and he sat upon them.
The very large crowd spreadtheir cloaks on the road, while
others cut branches from thetrees, strewn them on the road.
(02:52):
The apostles and the crowdspreceded him, and those
following kept crying out andsaying, Hosanna to the Son of
David, Blessed is he who comesin the name of the Lord.
Hosanna into the highest.
And when he entered Jerusalem,the whole city was shaken and
asked, Who is this?
(03:14):
And the crowds replied, This isJesus, the prophet from Nazareth
in Galilee, the gospel of theLord Jesus Christ.
As we process, let us sing oursong of welcome.
(03:36):
How does Jesus enter our lives?
Triumphantly, carrying thecross, on the cross, suffering,
or risen?
(03:57):
The paradox of the cross hits ustoday dearly.
The prophecies come true in thewords of the evangelists.
Riding on a donkey, not comingin victoriously on a horse,
(04:20):
coming with his disciples,people waving branches, the
prophecies come true.
Up until he's brought beforePilate, the prophecies are
coming true.
Even as he's placed in the tomb,the prophecies are true.
(04:45):
How do we allow Jesus to enterour lives?
He came to be one of us, andit's very significant for us to
pull him into our lives.
Whether we are suffering,whether we have relatives who
(05:06):
are suffering, whether we watchthe world as it suffers, it's
important for us to pull Jesusinto our lives, even if we have
to say, off of the donkey,because he is with us.
The resurrection proves that,proves that the scriptures were
(05:30):
fulfilled.
And what does his life show us?
That his message of loveprevails.
Love will conquer all.
Oh, there are so many timesthrough the history of the
world.
(05:51):
Persecution and bombings andterror and holocausts took
place.
A lot of suffering throughoutthe world's history.
Children, men and women,innocent people suffering, and
yet his life shows us, even ashe suffered with us, that love
(06:19):
does conquer all, that he willmake the final gesture, calling
us to himself and walking withus.
Paul refers to him as Lord, buthe also reminds us that this
(06:39):
Lord, raised by God, sent to us,exalted to the highest heavens,
on earth, was crucified anddied.
And not only did he die, he diedan ignominious death on the
cross, a disgusting death.
(07:02):
As any of us who have visitedthe Holy Land know, the route to
Calvary was marked by severalevents that we piously recall
Veronica, the sirene, the falls,the soldiers, the spitting, the
(07:26):
women who came to his side.
This is God's Son on earthwalking for us, giving us the
route to follow to love.
Because that's what conquerseverything.
Love.
He rose from the dead out oflove.
(07:50):
As we look at the Holy Landtoday, tears have to come to our
eyes when there are noprocessions, there are no
Hosannas in the streets of ViaDolorosa.
It's bombing, it's tears, it'sdisaster that the people, our
(08:10):
sisters and brothers of the HolyLand, are commemorating.
And inside their churches,they're hovering as they hear
the same words we heard today.
And they're seeking shelter andprayers, afraid to walk in
public as they have forcenturies since the Franciscans
(08:32):
became the administrators of theHoly Land, walked through
centuries carrying palmbranches, singing hosannas,
optimistic songs of praise.
But even today, 2016, 2026 yearsafter that event, there are no
(08:54):
hosannas in the streets.
There's disaster in the streets.
And the disaster is due to humanfailing.
Unable to love, unable to bringthat message of love into the
lives of each other and into theworld.
(09:15):
The message that has tainted theHoly Land is one of power and
greed and hate.
And yet God the Father sent hisson to conquer all that and be
victorious with love.
(09:37):
The message goes on.
And you and I are responsiblefor keeping that message alive.
Just as our sisters and brothersin the Holy Land are responsible
for keeping that message alive.
And the message is the sadnessof the Holy Land, the tears, the
(10:00):
bombing, will be gone one day.
And peace will prevail.
And doesn't that seem odd?
Doesn't that seem almostimpossible as we read the
headlines and see the headlinesevery day?
And yet the message of JesusChrist, because of Easter, will
(10:24):
prevail.
The message is love.
But it doesn't look that way.
And this isn't unique for thetwenty-first century.
This has been going on forcenturies.
The crusades, the invasions, allof it through the Holy Land, the
(10:50):
most holy of earth, wasdesecrated and is still being
desecrated.
Bring the Holy Land into our ownlives.
We're invited this week to bepart of the Passion of Jesus
Christ, to sit with Hisdisciples at the Last Supper, to
(11:14):
be present for the washing ofthe feet, all of it as a way of
sucking in the pain, the hate,the terror to give rise to the
message love.
We do this to walk with Christ,to put our own souls in the
(11:39):
hands of Jesus, to bring Himinto our sufferings, whether
it's family, international,whether it's marital, whatever
suffering we are, as we pray forthose who are ill, as we pray
for those who have died, we praywith hope, because this week
(12:03):
gives us that hope.
We travel with Christ, we'llcarry his cross, we'll kiss the
cross, we'll watch the washingof the feet, but it all leads to
the resurrection.
Friday will be the most solemnday of our year.
(12:25):
I remember as a child, my motherwould remind us that this day,
Friday, is the day Christcarried his cross, and we
remember his suffering.
And what she would say to us aschildren, you can go outside,
(12:48):
but only to walk to church.
No jumping, no playing, no ballgames in our neighborhood,
predominantly Italian.
We all observe that.
Because her philosophy was thisis the day Christ fell on the
(13:12):
earth three times.
This is the day his life madeour earth sacred.
And his message of love stayswith us as we go through the
falls of our own lives, as we gothrough the squabbles and the
(13:32):
angers and the hurts of our ownlives and the prejudices of our
own lives.
We fall with Christ to rise withhim.
How do we travel with Christ?
How do we allow Christ to travelwith us?
Are we spectators orparticipants in his passion?
(13:55):
If we imitate him, we will knowthe resurrection.
If we will ignore him, we willnot understand Easter.
His suffering, his cross, histears, his spit on his face
(14:16):
helped us to accept God's willin our own lives.
That pain, that death, remindsus that he did it first for our
sakes, and that we can continuethe message of hope, of love,
(14:46):
and of Easter, if we walk withChrist and bring him into our
lives.
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