Palm Sunday, 3/28/21

Dear St. Joseph Parish Family,

Now we enter Holy Week, the most important week of the year. There are many graces present right now – make sure to draw closer to Jesus this week. One way to do that is to read and pray over the passion narratives in the Gospels and let the Holy Spirit speak to you them. The place to encounter Christ most closely this week is to attend all the special Triduum liturgies.

The schedule for the liturgies this week is on our webpage. The key liturgies are those during the Triduum, or the 3 days leading to Easter. It starts with The Mass of the Lord's Supper, the last Passover meal celebrated by Jesus with the apostles, and where Jesus instituted the sacraments of Holy Orders and the Eucharist. Next, we celebrate the Passion of the Lord and the Veneration of the Cross on Good Friday, the day our Lord died for us. The Triduum ends Holy Saturday night at the Easter Vigil, the most important Mass of the year. It includes the Easter Vigil fire, the lighting of the Paschal candle and the singing of the Exultet (this year my classmate Fr. Gabriel will sing the Exultet – yes, we're bringing in a ringer), and the baptism, confirmation, and reception into the Church of this year's catechumens and candidates. Note that between the Mass of the Lord's Supper and the Easter Vigil there are no Masses celebrated anywhere in the world. There is the Veneration of the Cross on Good Friday, but it is not a Mass and the Eucharist is not consecrated – at that liturgy we distribute the Eucharist consecrated at the Mass of the Lord's Supper. These liturgies enter us into the saving actions of Christ as he undergoes His Passion and dies upon the cross to save us. This is the center of our faith, and these liturgies are privileged places for encountering the graces Christ won for us on the cross. 

Please consider helping prepare the church for the Triduum and Easter. We'll clean the church this Wednesday at 2 pm, and we'll set up for Easter on Holy Saturday after our morning prayer in the Church (around 9:30 am, but consider joining us for prayer at 9 am).

Finally, one last Lenten note. A traditional Lenten practice is almsgiving – consider giving to the Cardinal's Appeal as a last-minute Lenten practice (https://cardinalsappeal.org). Make sure to mark St. Joseph in Greenwich Village as your parish.