Palm Sunday (B), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, March 23, 2024

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Palm Sunday, B, Vigil
March 23, 2024

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

The following text guided the homily: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we prepare for Holy Week by focusing on the life-changing dialogue the Lord Jesus wants to have with us throughout the week as we retrace with him the most important events in the history of the world.
• Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, the only Mass during the year in which we have two Gospel passages, one at the start of the Mass in which we ponder Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when the crowds hail him with Palm branches and shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” The second is the solemn reading of the Lord’s passion, in which we enter into Jesus’ self-giving during the Last Supper and retrace his suffering as the fickle crowds should, “Crucify Him!” It’s normal on Palm Sunday for preachers to focus on the Passion, the longest Gospel passage read throughout the year and, with the passages on the resurrection, the real heart of the Gospel. Today, however, to orient us for Holy Week, I would like to preach on first Gospel, the Gospel of Palm Sunday proper, because it shows us how to welcome Jesus and journey with him not only throughout these holy days but in life.
• The details are few but highly significant. Let’s begin with Jesus’ transportation. Jesus sent two of his disciples to go the village opposite them where they’d find a tethered colt on which no one had ever sat, to untie it and bring it to him. When the owner asked, “Why are you untying this colt?,” they replied, as Jesus had instructed them, “the Master has need of it.” Jesus then rode that colt into Jerusalem. Jesus could have easily walked into the city; after all, except for occasional boat rides across the Sea of Galilee, he walked everywhere. But he wanted to ride the foal of a donkey on which no one had ever sat. He had need of it to fulfill the Messianic prophecy announced by Zechariah, who wrote, “Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.” Just as Solomon had ridden a mule, so Jesus was riding a consecrated colt no one had ever used, an indication that he was indeed the Son of David and rightful successor to him. Whereas riding a horse would have been a sign of war, to ride a donkey was a sign that the one riding was coming in peace. Zechariah’s prophecy continues: “He shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. … Because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your captives free from the waterless pit.” This King of peace riding on the foal of a donkey would be a universal king “from sea to sea” who would set people free not from political enemies but from the “waterless pit,” in other words, from death.
• As we prepare for this most holy of weeks, we can learn a lot from this colt. The Master has need of us, too. In the ancient Gregorian chant for the hymn Christians sing on Palm Sunday, “All Glory Laud and Honor,” there is a verse in Latin that reads, “Sis pius ascensor, tuus et nos simus asellus. Tecum nos capitat urbs veneranda Dei,” which can be translated as, “May you be the holy Rider and we your little colt, so that the venerated City of God may grasp us together with you.” Jesus wants us to enter the Holy City with him. He wants us to collaborate with him in this work of his salvation. St. Josemaria Escriva, the 20^th century apostle of the sanctification of the laity, sought to imitate and help others to emulate this donkey in welcoming Jesus and assisting his work. “There are hundreds of animals more beautiful, more deft and strong,” he wrote. “But it was a donkey Christ chose when he presented himself to the people as king in response to their acclamation.” Jesus wants us, like a donkey, to be a docile, diligent, steady companion.  That’s the type of cooperation Jesus wants in all of us this Holy Week and beyond.
• The second thing we can mention are the Palm branches, which the priest blesses at the beginning of Palm Sunday Mass. St. Mark tells us, “Many people spread their cloaks on the road and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.” Throughout the Middle East, at Jesus’ time and still today, the palm branch is a symbol of victory, joy, goodness, peace, and, because of the nourishing dates that Palm trees produce, life, even eternal life. God instructed the Jews to use Palm Branches during the Feast of Tabernacles. David was welcomed with palm branches the day he was enthroned (2 Kings 9:13). Solomon had palm branches carved into the walls and doors of the Temple. The Maccabeans (1 Macc 13:51) used them after they defeated the Greeks in battle in Old Testament times. The Book of Revelation describes the redeemed as “wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands” as the stand before the throne of God and of Jesus the Lamb. At the beginning of Holy Week, we Christians take up Palm Branches, we could say, to roll out the red carpet to welcome the Lord Jesus as he enters this week. We proclaim with joy his victory, his goodness, his peace and how he leads us to eternal life. The priest prays as he blesses the branches: “Almighty ever-living God, sanctify these branches with your blessing, that we who follow Christ the King in exultation, may reach the eternal Jerusalem through him.” Renewing ourselves in the white robes of our baptism and holding palm branches in our hands, we stand before the Lamb as he takes away our sins by what he accomplished on Good Friday and then seek to join him, the Lamb looking as if he has been slain, as we seek to enter with him into the eternal Jerusalem.
• The third element we can mention is what those with palm branches jubilantly shout as Jesus enters Jerusalem on the colt: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come! Hosanna in the highest!” Hosanna is a Jewish expression that means, “Save now” or “Deliver us promptly.” It’s a recognition that Jesus is coming as the Son of David, as the King, to save. What the people were shouting were excerpts from Psalm 118, which the Jews used to sing on the Feast of Tabernacles: “Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord… The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.… Save us [Hosanna], we beseech you, O Lord! … Give us success! Blessed be he who enters in the name of the Lord! …Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar! You are my God, and I will give you thanks (Psalm 118:19,22, 25-28). Jesus, they were proclaiming, was coming in the Lord’s name to deliver them and to lead them ultimately to the altar, to sacrifice, with thanksgiving to God. Little did they know what that fulfillment would entail! But we know. Every Mass we make our own the words of Psalm 118 and the joyful shouts of the people. We focus on how God is holy, holy, holy and how heaven and earth are full of his glory, before saying, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” as we cry out, “Hosanna,” “deliver us,” “save us.” This is what we do, as well, at the beginning of Holy Week. We recognize that it is in this week that Jesus comes in the name of God the Father to bring us to salvation. He comes to lead us to the Upper Room and Calvary, where he offers himself to the Father for that deliverance and wants to help us to offer ourselves together with him. Like Moses and the Israelites, Jesus comes to lead us on an exodus, a journey, a procession. That’s what happens during Holy Week. Jesus wants us to do more than wave branches, lay cloaks, and cite the Psalms. He wants us to journey with him. He wants us to follow him. Even more, like the colt, he has need of us.
• The Church’s journey through time can be likened to the continuation of the procession begun on Palm Sunday. The Church is, as the Second Vatican Council emphasized and Eucharistic Prayer III proclaims, a “pilgrim Church on earth.” We journey with Jesus toward the heavenly Jerusalem. This year, however, during the ongoing Eucharistic Revival taking place in the Church in our country, we will have the opportunity to focus on how our earthly pilgrimage is ultimately Eucharistic. In preparation for the Eucharistic Congress taking place in Indianapolis July 17-21, there will be four, 65-day nationwide Eucharistic pilgrimages walking with the Eucharistic Jesus to Indianapolis. One from the west will leave from San Francisco; another from the north will start at the birthplace of the Mississippi River near the Canadian border; a third from the south will begin in Brownsville, Texas, near the Mexican border; the last from the east will begin at the tomb of Blessed Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, in New Haven. I have the privilege to be the priest on this eastern route. Like the donkey on Palm Sunday, I will be able to carry the Lord not into Jerusalem but into New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, DC, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and many other cities and towns along our journey. Starting on May 18, priests on other pilgrimages will be doing the same in cities all across our country. I would urge you to visit eucharisticpilgrimage.org to find out the closest place this Eucharistic Pilgrimage will be coming to you. Go out to meet Jesus like the crowds did in Jerusalem; and, if you can, to come celebrate in July in Indianapolis, with Catholics from across the country, what Jesus did for us this week, through giving his body and blood for us and our salvation.
• The Eucharistic Pilgrimage, just like the procession on Palm Sunday, is meant to lead us into these mysteries and help us follow Jesus up close. At the beginning of Mass this Sunday, the priest will pray: “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.” The Church calls us to follow in Jesus’ footsteps as he seeks to lead us during Holy Week to a holy life. And let us ask for the grace to continue walking with him each day through a Eucharistic life, as we seek to receive fully all that he accomplished for us during these most sacred days.

The Gospel passage on which the homily was based was: 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download