The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Center Bishop, The Most Reverend John O. Barres, delivered a homily on Palm Center for the 1.2 million baptized Catholics in Suffolk and Nassau Counties.
Here is his Holy Week message in its entirety:
“Palm Sunday teaches us that the glory of this world is fleeting.
It comes and goes, sometimes within a few days.
The contrast between our Lord's triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his suffering and death just a few days later makes a powerful Palm Sunday point.
We need to firmly establish the house of our lives on the rock of Jesus Christ and his paschal mystery rather than the shifting sands of human respect, opinion, and win.
St. Andrew of Crete writes, So let us spread before our Lord's feet, not garments or soulless olive branches which delight the eye for a few hours and then wither, but ourselves clothed in his grace, clothed completely in him.
Father Sebastian White writes, We realize that when we experience the ups and downs of life or when a great cross is suddenly placed upon us, it is not a sign that God has forgotten about us or that his plan for us has failed.
Just as Jesus' own short journey from a royal welcome to an ignominious death was all part of the divine plan for the redemption of the world, so the vicissitudes of our own life are firmly within God's loving providence.
The cross of Jesus Christ is the central point in the history of the world and is the central point of the life history of every human being and every soul.
In each one of the crosses we carry in life, the crucified Christ lifts high His cross and raises His wounded hands to the world.
Each one of us mysteriously on this passion Sunday, 2025, carries the cross of Christ with the people of the world experiencing war, tragedies, traumas, and horrific injustices.
May this Holy Week of 2025, in the Jubilee Year of Hope, be a time of great evangelizing grace for the church and for the world, and may the Holy Spirit ignite in each one of us a spirit of heroic and courageous holiness and mission.
Thank you.”