Holy Family Church

Passiontide to Palm Sunday to the Paschal Mystery

Is your Passiontide life looking any different than your normal days, even your ‘normal’ Lenten days? If not, you may want to ask yourself if the coming Paschal Mystery celebration – Christ’s Suffering, Death, and Resurrection – are truly central to your Christian life in daily living? For there should be welling up within us an anticipation, a tension, a holy resolve to ‘take up our Cross and follow Him’ not just liturgically but practically. Does our prayer and practice on Sunday impact, influence, and inform our daily life Monday to Saturday? Especially now, that answer should be a resounding ‘Yes!’For what we celebrate in the coming week is not just a mere recollection or remembering of Christ’s work, oh so many years ago; but an anamnesis – a reliving – sacramentally, spiritually, substantially – so Christ’s Saving Work may be present and applicable in my life and yours. As we enter into this Holy Week – starting today with Palm Sunday – we walk with the Lord. We commemorate his Passion, Death, and Resurrection. Our readings, our Gospels, our prayer takes us to the Holy Land to walk in the very footsteps of Christ as disciples, as sinners, as the redeemed. This indeed is a Holy Week!

Speaking of being taken to the Holy Land to walk with Christ, every year on Good Friday, a monetary collection is taken up for specifically for the needs of Christians in the Holy Land. Archbishop Thompson, in promoting the Good Friday Collection says the following: “The Pastoral care of the Christians and the maintenance of the sacred shrines in and around Jerusalem have been a mission of the Franciscan Friars dating back centuries. Each year we are asked to support their work though the Pontifical Good Friday Collection. Pope Francis commends to the care of the Franciscan Friars, “…support [of] these brothers of ours, especially the poorest and weakest; in the education of young people – who often risk losing hope in a context that is still without peace – in welcoming the elderly and the care for the sick, living out the works of mercy in a concrete way in daily life.” The Pontifical Good Friday Collection offers all Catholics around the world an opportunity to express their solidarity with Christians in the Holy Land. A donation to the Holy Father’s annual appeal is a direct way to make a difference in the lives of those who are caught up in war, violence, and now the effects of the COVID pandemic. Gratefully, I encourage your generosity to this collection.”

I would add my support to this collection as well. Having been blessed to visit the Holy Land three times, I’ve witnessed firsthand the real struggles of Christians in the Holy Land to make a living, to raise families, to continue the Faith in the very footsteps of Christ. The number of Christians in the Holy Land has been in steep decline in recent years due to the present challenges. Supporting this collection is one small way to help come alongside and help carry those burdens as St Simon of Cyrene did for Christ. Please be generous.

Divine Mercy Sunday Plenary Indulgence for Sunday, Apr 24 requirements are:

• Participate worthily in Sacramental Confession
• Receive the Eucharistic on Divine Mercy Sunday (Saturday Vigil suffices)
• Offer Prayers for the intentions of Pope Francis
  (typically, at least, an Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, and recitation of the Creed)
• Specifically, for the Divine Mercy Indulgence on Divine Mercy Sunday (24 April 2022)
  • In any church or chapel, in a spirit that is completely detached from the affection for sin, even venial sin, take part in the prayers and devotions held in honor of Divine Mercy
    OR
  • In the presence of the Blessed Sacrament exposed or reserved in the tabernacle, recite a devout prayer to the merciful Lord Jesus (e.g. “Merciful Jesus, I trust in you!”).”

Holy Family, Mediating Mercy, Pray for us.

~ Fr Jeremy M. Gries