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Palm Sunday

Laudetur Iesus Christus! Today is the second Sunday of Passiontide, Palm Sunday. Dr. Mike Foley offers a helpful reflection on today’s Collect, which marks the beginning of the holiest week of the liturgical year: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2021/03/the-collect-of-palm-sunday.html We also share some commentary on the day:

Palm Sunday Masses will be offered at 11:30am (St. Thomas), and 12:30pm (St. Ann) according to the 1962 rubrics.

Six Sundays for the Triduum – Thank you

We thank everyone who have made the heroic sacrifice to join us for Latin Masses during the six Sundays of Lent to help restore the Latin Triduum. Today, Palm Sunday is the sixth Sunday of Lent, and although the Latin Triduum will not be offered this year in Charlotte, we invite you to still join on Sunday, and to continue to pray and offer penance for the Latin Mass. By God’s grace, these sacrifices will bear fruit. It is a sorrowful situation to have this beautiful good, the Latin Triduum which gives much glory to God, taken away. Yet the CLMC is not afraid of what lies ahead for the Latin Mass and neither should our readers.  As exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger noted in September, despite these attacks and cancellations, the Latin Mass will continue until the second coming of Christ. Until that time, we in Charlotte can now “turn the tables” on this liturgical persecution (if one may call it that) by utilizing this suffering, uniting oneself to the Passion Our Lord experienced this week, and using this Triduum absence as an opportunity to offer it for this diocese, that it receives the graces to bring about an even greater good for the Latin Mass – perhaps a liturgical framework that is more stable and secure than what exited prior.  Lastly, please continue to offer your prayers and Lenten penances for Bishop Jugis. As we’ve mentioned prior, he is a prayerful bishop and remains in a very difficult situation. As you can imagine, he needs our prayers and penances more than ever.

Easter Sunday Latin Masses

The good news is all the Easter Latin Masses will be offered as scheduled. Here is a listing of diocesan Latin Masses in the area:

Charlotte

  • St. Thomas Aquinas – 11:30am
  • St. Ann – 12:30pm

Outside Charlotte

Divine Mercy Novena begins Good Friday – Easter Saturday (April 15 – 23): Good Friday begins the Divine Mercy novena which concludes the day before Divine Mercy/Low Sunday April 24. St. Ann’s features a statue of the Divine Mercy of Our Lord in front of the parish, honoring the late seminarian & parishioner Michael Kitson who passed away on Divine Mercy Sunday a few years ago.  As we have asked in prior years, for those who observe this devotion please consider praying for these intentions as part of your novena: For the suffering Christians in the Middle East; an end of abortion in our country; the reestablishment of the weekly Sunday Latin Mass at Sacred Heart parish in Salisbury; restoration of the Latin Triduum for 2023 (new addition); and for the regularization (resolution of the status) of the Society of St. Pius X.

Latin Mass & Traditional News

  • The Chapters of Passiontide: Fr. William Rock, FSSP, from the Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), a congregation of priests that offer the Latin Mass exclusively wrote an article on the little “chapter” readings contained in the Divine Office for this Passiontide season and helps to call everyone to reparation for sins:  https://fssp.com/the-chapters-of-passiontide/:

Palm Sunday Reflection – Dom Prosper Gueranger, OSB

To close this update, we share the great 19th century liturgist, Dom Prosper Gueranger’s reflection for Palm Sunday, in this book, The Liturgical Year:

“Early in the morning of this day, Jesus sets out for Jerusalem, leaving Mary, his Mother, and the two sisters Martha and Mary Magdalene, and Lazarus, at Bethania. The Mother of Sorrows trembles at seeing her Son thus expose himself to danger, for his enemies are bent upon his destruction; but it is not Death, it is Triumph, that Jesus is to receive today in Jerusalem. The Messias, before being nailed to the Cross, is to be proclaimed King by the people of the great City; the little children are to make her streets echo with their Hosannas to the Son of David; and this in presence of the soldiers of Rome’s Emperor, and of the High Priests and Pharisees—the first, standing under the banner of their Eagles; the second, dumb with rage.

The Prophet Zachary had foretold this Triumph which the Son of Man was to receive a few days before his Passion, and which had been prepared for him from all eternity. Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Sion! Shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold thy King will come to thee; the Just and the Savior. He is poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass. Jesus, knowing That the hour was come for the fulfillment of this prophecy, singles out two from the rest of his Disciples, and bids them lead him to an ass and her colt, which they would find not far off. He had got to Bethphage, on Mount Olivet. The two Disciples lose no time in executing the order given them by their divine Master; and the ass and the colt are soon brought to the place where he stands.

The holy Fathers have explained to us the mystery of these two animals. The ass represents the Jewish people, which had been long under the yoke of the Law; the colt, upon which, as the Evangelist says, no man yet hath sat, is a figure of the Gentile world, which no one had ever yet brought into subjection. The future of these two people is to be decided in a few days hence: the Jews will be rejected for having refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Messias; the Gentiles will take their place, be adopted as God’s people, and become docile and faithful.

The Disciples spread their garments upon the colt; and our Savior, that the prophetic figure might be fulfilled, sat upon him, and advances towards Jerusalem. As soon as it was known that Jesus was near the City, the Holy Spirit worked in the hearts of those Jews who had come, from all parts, to celebrate the Feast of the Passover. They go out to meet our Lord, holding palm branches in their hands, and loudly proclaiming him to be King. They that had accompanied Jesus from Bethania join the enthusiastic crowd. While some spread their garments on the way, others cut down boughs from the Palm trees, and strewed them along the road. Hosanna is the triumphant cry, proclaiming to the whole city that Jesus, the Son of David, has made his entrance as her King.

Thus did God, in his power over men’s hearts, procure a triumph for his Son, and in the very City which, a few days after, was to clamor for his Blood. This day was one of glory to our Jesus, and the holy Church would have us renew, each year, the memory of this triumph of the Man-God. Shortly after the Birth of our Emmanuel, we saw the Magi coming from the extreme East, and looking in Jerusalem for the King of the Jews, to whom they intended offering their gifts and their adoration: but it is Jerusalem herself that now goes forth to meet this King. Each of these events is an acknowledgement of the Kingship of Jesus: the first, from the Gentiles; the second, from the Jews. Both were to pay him this regal homage before he suffered his Passion…

…Jesus begins his reign upon the earth this very day; and though the first Israel is soon to disclaim his rule, a new Israel, formed from the faithful few of the old, shall rise up in every nation of the earth, and become the Kingdom of Christ, a kingdom such as no mere earthly monarch ever coveted in his wildest fancies of ambition.”

Sunday is Palm Sunday when the faithful greet Our Lord in His triumphant entry into Jerusalem. What Mass will you be attending Palm Sunday?