Palm Sunday Homily

The following are excerpts from Archbishop Vigneron’s homily on Palm Sunday at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament on March 20, 2016. About six hundred members of the faithful were present for a blessing of palm branches and procession into the Cathedral.

The expression “Hosanna” is a kind of a shout out, an acclamation, a Hebrew expression about deliverance and being made safe. ... It can be “deliver us.” And it can be an acclamation, “You are the deliverer. You are the savior.” As we walked into the Cathedral, as we sang our hosannas, that really was our prayer – “You, Jesus are our savior."...

...After hearing the passion according to St. Luke, our Savior King is redefined in his royalty, in his kingship. Yes, he sets the world in right order. Yes he is the one who was promised to David, whom all the prophets foretold, the one for whom the whole human race has been looking to solve our problems, to make things right, to fix it – all the “its” that need fixing. Yet he’s done it in a way so contrary to what we might have expected. He’s fixed it. He’s made it all right, by fixing the problem at its very root. Because the problem is sin and self-will and disobedience, he’s healed it by his humility and by his obedience, by his sacrificial love. He’s King in a way that the world never expected to have a king. This is, I would suggest to you as your pastor, a point for all of your meditation, every day this next week...

Hosanna. There never is a celebration of the Eucharist in which we don’t say that. Blessed his he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! The whole mystery of this week is there. The mystery of the king coming to his city, Jerusalem. The mystery of the King at the Holy Eucharist on Holy Thursday night, creating the place in which his subjects would gather and recognize one another. Good Friday, when the King triumphed by enduring every human failure and evil in his flesh. And Easter, when the King turns things upside-down and shows that he’s killed death by letting death destroy him, by being vindicated by his Father for his trust in the Father...

...Today, let us especially mean that “hosanna” when we sing it. Let us resolve, every time when we sing it at mass, to think about this day, to think about this Gospel, to think about our King. And let us work tirelessly all of us to unleash the Gospel so that the whole world will say, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!"