Fontgombault Sermon for Palm Sunday 2021: Follow Jesus on the Days of Joy, as well as on the Days of Sorrow

Sermon of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau

Father Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault

Fontgombault, March 28, 2021

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My dearly beloved Sons,

After Lent, the time of spiritual preparation, to which was added a part of penance, after our entry last Sunday into the time of Passion, we are now beginning with Palm Sunday the Holy Week.

This week is called holy, for the events we commemorate are holy: the institution of the Eucharist and of the sacrament of Holy Orders, the death and resurrection of Our Lord. This week is holy, for these events, holy in themselves, are also sanctifying for those who accept to follow Christ.

Fontgombault Sermon for Palm Sunday: "In these dark days, an old world is dying -- May a renewed world rise in Christ!"

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Palm Sunday

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Sermon of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau

Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault

Fontgombault, April 5, 2020

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My dearly beloved Sons,

We open now the way of Holy Week, a painful week, in the image of the time of epidemic we are going through. For the ceremonies, the churches' doors, as well as the houses' doors, will remain closed.

May the Lord come and visit us, as His disciples after His resurrection, “Januis clausis,” the doors being closed. He will make light of any closed door, if the hearts' doors are open to Him. Far away from the churches, revive your family liturgy by the meditation of the so rich liturgical texts, the Rosary, the practice of a true charity between yourselves. Dioceses and communities make several tools available.

Imitate the Apostles before Pentecost:

Palm Sunday 2020: Anima Christi, santifica me...

Passio Christi, conforta me. O bone Iesu, exaudi me.   Intra vulnera tua absconde me.

Palm Sunday: The Condemned Lord moves along

[On this Palm Sunday, Rorate remembers the
over 30 Coptic Christians martyred today by
the satanic Sect of Death in Egypt.]

Meditation for Palm Sunday - Jesus Carries the Cross to Calvary

I.

The sentence upon Our Saviour having been published, they straightway seize hold of Him in their fury: they strip Him anew of that purple rag, and put His own raiment upon Him, to lead Him away to be crucified on Calvary, - the place appropriated for the execution of criminals: They took off the cloak from Him, and put on Him His own garments, and led Him away to crucify Him.” (Matt. xxvii 31.) They then lay hold of two rough beams, and quickly make them into a cross, and order Him to carry it on His shoulders to the place of His punishment. What cruelty, to lay upon the criminal the gibbet on which he has to die!

But this is Thy lot, O my Jesus, because Thou has taken my sins upon Thyself.

II.

Jesus refuses not the cross; with love He embraces it, as being the altar whereon is destined to be completed the sacrifice of His life for the salvation of men: And bearing His own Cross, He went forth to that place which is called Calvary.

Damned Lies: On the Destiny of Judas Iscariot

From the traditional Collect for Holy Thursday (Missale Romanum 1962), it is clear past all doubt that the centuries-old lex orandi of the Church teaches that Judas is lost, condemned forever to the fires of hell: 

O God, from whom Judas received the punishment of his guilt, and the thief the reward of his confession: grant unto us the full fruit of Thy clemency; that even as in His Passion our Lord Jesus Christ gave to each retribution according to his merits, so having cleared away our former guilt, he may bestow on us the grace of His resurrection: Who with Thee liveth and reigneth…

This conclusion was once taken for granted by everyone. Why, then, do so many people nowadays say that we “do not know” about Judas’s final destiny? To show that I am not exaggerating, take the former Father Thomas Williams of the Legionaires of Christ, in a ZENIT interview:

Historically, many have thought that Judas is probably in hell, because of Jesus’ severe indictment of Judas: “It would be better for that man if he had never been born,” as he says in Matthew 26:24. But even these words do not offer conclusive evidence regarding his fate. In his 1994 book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope John Paul II wrote that Jesus’ words “do not allude for certain to eternal damnation.”

The Witness of Scripture