Your Sunday Sermon Notes – Palm Sunday 2020 (TLM)

Was there a good point made in the sermon you heard at the Mass that fulfilled your Sunday Obligation?  WHOOPS!  You probably are in a place where you don’t have an obligation, either because the bishop dispensed it or there are no Masses!

However, perhaps you saw a Mass with a sermon over the interwebs.

Was there a good point? There are a lot of people who don’t get many good points in the sermons they must endure.

For my part… to an empty church.

I give some practical tips about how to make the most of Holy Week without being able to go to church.  

The whole Mass HERE.  It was on a skeleton crew of really great servers and a couple guys in the choir loft, so we could have a Sung Mass.  TLM.  I forgot to do a couple of things, alas, but we managed to get the whole thing in in just under and hour and a half.   I wanted to do pre-55, but our MC didn’t show.

In the afternoon, we sang Vespers.  HERE

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About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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15 Comments

  1. Imrahil says:

    Even if I could have been to Mass today, there would not have been a sermon. Neither was there one in the Mass who I attached myself virtually to by lifestream. Seems to be a tradition, at least around here, not to have a sermon for Palm Sunday except in the Mass celebrated by the bishop. After all, the pre-1954 liturgy (which both of these Masses enjoy or would have enjoyed) is quite long.

    I’ll listen to yours, though, reverend Father (though I have not yet). Thanks in advance.

  2. Semper Gumby says:

    “An honor and an opportunity is being offered to you.” Amen Fr. Z.

  3. Baritone says:

    Maybe what each of us is seeing today is something of what the world might look like if repentance were not possible. The priests … preaching to an empty church, with no one present, with no one to console, with no one to save. We, the faithful, without the Sacraments, our churches closed, our religion deemed non-essential, separated from our priests and bishops and one another, as if the Body of Christ were split into all of its constituent members, each detached from one another. And everywhere about in the world, a hysteria of hopelessness and the fear of death.

  4. Denis Crnkovic says:

    Fr X– at St S– asked: Why are the big box stores open when the Catholic Churches are closed to Confession? (Okay, I studied Russian literature seriously for many decades and ironically note the “–” above.)

  5. Spinmamma says:

    Point (really a reminder) : Our Lord is the ultimate servant, and He served not only God the Father but us. He sacrificed Himself for us and we are called to sacrifice ourselves to Him and for humanity. During His passion and on the cross he plumbed the depths of suffering–betrayal by those who said they loved him, mockery, torture and utter abandonment. He has endured all the pain of humanity and no one should fear to come to him with a repentant heart.

  6. Jim Dorchak says:

    We did not have Sunday here in Chile. The bISHOPS called it off and deemed it non essential.

  7. I talked a lot about confessions, since that is most of what i can offer, when I wasn’t talking about the pain we all feel.

  8. CanukFrank says:

    I attended your mass in Pine Bluff via Internet, Fr! Good points? “There is no distance….” reminded me that the 2,398 km from Pine Bluff to my neck of Canada is inconsequential. Also, “this is the time God chose for us to be in existence….” was a wonderful reminder that these strange days of pestilence driven, lock-downs of various degrees and severity really ARE part of God’s plan for me, you and everyone. I later dug up an article of yours from January 15, 2017 to read the same sentiments: “God knew each one of us outside of time, before the creation of both the visible and invisible universe. He called us into existence at a precise moment in His eternal plan. He gives us all something to do in His plan together with the talents and graces to do it”. Thank you, Fr. Z., for refreshing and strengthening me with your words as we head, subdued and puzzled by the last three weeks, into Holy Week.

  9. Ron Van Wegen says:

    Can Easter be postponed?

    [No.]

  10. Rob in Maine says:

    Well, the streamline feed died, so I participated in half of our area Mass and the other half with the Holy Father at St. Peter’s. :/

  11. iPadre says:

    My focus was on the Offertory. “I looked for one that would grieve together with Me.” And I talked about us keeping company with out Lord at Eucharist Adoration as He suffers the passion of the abundance of sin in our world today.

  12. I watched a livestream of a pre-1955 Palm Sunday Mass. Father noted that in the Old Testament, there is the catalyst for a punishment from God, like the Babylonian captivity (priests behaving badly); and then there is the reason for the punishment (Israel’s failure to serve the Lord in joy and gladness), and God’s admonition to Israel that if they accept the punishment, they will live. I wish I had made a note of his Scripture references. I will have to look at the video. The bottom line was, instead of complaining about the bishops, we need to address the underlying reasons we have been allowed to fall into the hands of bishops that have responded to this the way they have, and use this time to reform our lives. St. John Eudes said bad shepherds are a very positive and unmistakeable sign of God’s wrath against His people.

  13. APX says:

    Livestream of our Bishop’s Mass. He has changed his tone about caring about people’s health with regards to cancelling Masses.

    He talked about we need to focus on not flattening the cross (as opposed to flattening the curve) and mentioned we are living in a post Christian society and referred to the current situation as a persecution and oppression of the Church.

  14. mo7 says:

    Your mentions of the lack of sacrilegious communion brings to mind childhood experience. My dad would always be so annoyed with the 2x a year Catholics who took up the parking lot, the seating at Mass and put only the teeniest donation in the basket. As a kid, I could never understand this annoyance and the rant that would ensue trying to get out of the parking lot. My little brain saying, ‘but Dad don’t we want everyone to come to Mass’? I may have even vocalized this once, only to be put in my place. Back to sacrilegious communion, the priests always would welcome the ash and palm people, but not then, and even to this day, have I heard a gentle reminder to avoid communion if it hadn’t been proceeded by needed confession. As the A&P people were permitted to continue unchecked so went reverence and the faith in Our Lord’s real presence.

  15. What a lovely homily you gave, Father! I shared it with my parish via Facebook.

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