SCCR Parish Blog

Here is the YouTube recording of my Palm Sunday reflection . The notes for that homily are below. Palm Sunday 2020 You all know by now that we are celebrating one of the most memorable of weeks, at this very sad time when due to a world-wide health epidemic, Catholic communities will not be able to celebrate the beautiful Holy Week liturgies together for the first time in the memory of nearly all us. So we should keep a few things in mind.   First, that God is still glorified whenever and wherever the holy Mass is celebrated – whether it is with one priest and seminarian or a congregation of hundreds in the pews.   The second that God is with us and does not abandon us, even when we can’t be united to Him in Holy Communion.   I recently watched a move entitled Silence about the Japanese martyrs in the 17 th century, missionary priests and lay faithful who gave up their lives for the practice of their faith, even in the face of brutal persecution from the sh...

The Palm Sunday Mass celebrated by Pope Francis at St. Peter's in Vatican City will be broadcast at 7:00 p.m. on Palm Sunday, today April 5th.  This can be watched on cable or via the Internet.  Their TV highlights are here and the schedule for EWTN programming is here .  They are also broadcasting the solemn Mass of Palm Sunday at noon today (April 5th) from the National Shrine in Washington. 

The good Dominican friars at the Magnificat devotional magazine have provided this very helpful prayer service and liturgy of the word for Palm Sunday celebration at home.  That is, a suggestion of how to pray the Palm Sunday readings at prayer at home, since the bishops have suspended all public Masses here in Ohio. See also previous post for some beautiful Palm Sunday music videos.

UPDATED 4/4/20 See later post for suggested prayer service ===== As we enter into Holy Week this Sunday, we ask the Lord to help us stay focused on His Passion, Suffering, Death and saving Resurrection, as much as we might be tempted to stay glued to the grim news of the coronavirus instead. For your Palm Sunday prayer and reflection, I am including some links I hope will be helpful: Scripture We are all familiar with the tradition of reading through the Gospel story of the Passion (suffering) of Jesus Christ.  Many parishes read that in parts, with the priest reading the part of Christ, with a narrator and the congregation praying the prayers of the people. This year, the Church reflects on St. Matthew's account of the Passion.  You can read that Gospel here. I f you are praying with a family, I recommend reading it in turn, so that each family member gets to participate.  For example, the father reading the part of Christ, the mother narrating, the ch...