{"id":6253,"date":"2025-04-04T09:58:54","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T14:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/?p=6253"},"modified":"2025-04-04T09:58:54","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T14:58:54","slug":"pastors-letter-april-6-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Pastor’s Letter: April 6, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear St. Philomena Parish Family,<\/p>\n

Blessed 5th<\/sup> weekend of Lent!\u00a0 I hope this Lenten time has been a great time of growth for you\u2026if there is still some growing to do, I want to encourage you to just keep going. I recently wrote a reflection column for the priests of our Diocese about the renewal of promises we make coming up at the Chrism Mass during Holy Week. As I was writing, I reflected on how we often have an ideal that is difficult to live up to\u2014certainly as priests we want to be great witnesses to Christ, all the while knowing that we are fallen humans like everyone else. Yet, in the midst of daily living, Jesus just asks us to keep going. If we continue to fight for true growth in our hearts, we can know with confidence that Jesus is with us\u2026and that united with Him our outcome is one of assured victory.\u00a0 In the Christian life, as long as we continue the journey, we can know with joy what the end result will be!<\/p>\n

Perhaps you can tell, I\u2019m thinking ahead a bit to Holy Week, which starts next week with the celebration of Palm Sunday. Why do we do that? Why do we use palms? As the Missal for the Mass teaches, \u201cOn this day the Church recalls the entrance of Christ the Lord into Jerusalem to accomplish his Paschal Mystery\u201d (Palm Sunday Introduction).\u00a0 The entrance antiphon for the Mass recalls the cheers of the people greeting Jesus, \u201cHosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel. Hosanna in the highest\u201d (Mt 21:9\u2026hopefully we recognize quite a few words of that verse in the Holy, Holy<\/i> Mass part as well! J). We then have an opening address: \u201cDear brothers and sisters, since the beginning of Lent until now we have prepared our hearts by penance and charitable works. Today we gather together to herald with the whole Church the beginning of the celebration of our Lord\u2019s Paschal Mystery, that is to say, of his Passion and Resurrection. For it was to accomplish this mystery that he entered his own city of Jerusalem. Therefore with all faith and devotion, let us commemorate the Lord\u2019s entry into the city for our salvation, following in his footsteps, so that, being made by his grace partakers of the Cross, we may have a share also in his Resurrection and in his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the blessing of the palm branches, a Gospel reading is read which recalls the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem. With great joy and fervor we laud Christ the Messiah along with the people in the reading. The world had waited for a Savior for so long\u2014what a great joy to welcome him to the city that day! Of course we know how fickle our hearts can be\u2026we know that soon we will have turned away from him and change our cheers into the harsh words, \u201cCrucify Him!\u201d\u00a0 But not in this moment\u2026no\u2026in this moment we celebrate who Jesus is and that he is among us!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure that all sounds like you would expect\u2026so where do the palm branches fit in? If you read the Gospel readings (Mt 21:1-11; Mk 11:1-10; Lk 19:28-40; Jn 12:12-16), you will hear of people carrying palm branches, as well as placing their cloaks and cut branches on the road\u2026a way of \u201crolling out the red carpet\u201d as we might say. Although palms are most commonly used, the Catholic Encyclopedia<\/i> notes that in places where palm branches are not available, other branches can be used such as olive, box elder, spruce, or swamp willows. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia<\/i>, \u201cIn pre-Christian times the palm was regarded as a symbol of victory. It was adopted by the early Christians, and became a symbol of the victory of the faithful over the enemies of the soul. [According to Psalm 92:13, \u201cThe just shall flourish like the palm tree\u201d]<\/a>. The palm, says Origen the Christian writer, is the symbol of victory in that war waged by the spirit against the flesh. In this sense it was especially applicable to martyrs, the victors par excellence<\/i> over the spiritual foes of mankind; hence the frequent occurrence in the Acts of the martyrs of such expressions as “he received the palm of martyrdom.”<\/p>\n

What do we do with the palms after Palm Sunday?\u00a0 Continuing from the Catholic<\/i> Encyclopedia<\/i>, \u201cThe palms blessed on Palm Sunday were used in the procession of the day, then taken home by the faithful and used as a sacramental. They were preserved in prominent places in the house, in the barns, and in the fields, and thrown into the fire during storms. On the Lower Rhine the custom exists of decorating the grave with blessed palms.\u201d In a similar way, The Catholic Source<\/i> Book teaches, \u201cAfter Palm Sunday, it has become tradition to display the palms, often in some artistic form (braided, woven, crosswise), often with a crucifix or sacred picture. For the following Ash Wednesday they may be burned, with the ashes then used for the beginning of Lent\u201d (p.324).<\/p>\n

So, I hope you have another fruitful week of Lent\u2026and I\u2019ll look forward to carrying the palm branches together next week as we enter Holy Week. May we take joy in knowing the Lord is with us\u2026and may the blessed palm branches we\u2019ll take with us be a yearlong reminder that Jesus the Savior is in our midst\u2014truly a reason to celebrate all throughout the year!<\/p>\n

In Christ,<\/p>\n

Father Luke<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear St. Philomena Parish Family, Blessed 5th weekend of Lent!\u00a0 I hope this Lenten time has been a great time of growth for you\u2026if there is still some growing to do, I want to encourage you to just keep going. I recently wrote a reflection column for the priests of our Diocese about the renewal … Continue reading Pastor’s Letter: April 6, 2025<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fr-luke-spannagel","category-letter-from-pastor"],"yoast_head":"\nPastor's Letter: April 6, 2025 - St. Philomena Catholic Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"chadmin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"chadmin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/#\/schema\/person\/5e00f5f2ab9dc0c9672d91f3666e7572\"},\"headline\":\"Pastor’s Letter: April 6, 2025\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-04-04T14:58:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/\"},\"wordCount\":953,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Fr.-Luke-Spannagel_9358-Copy.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Fr. Luke Spannagel\",\"Pastor's Weekly Letter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/\",\"name\":\"Pastor's Letter: April 6, 2025 - St. Philomena Catholic Church\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Fr.-Luke-Spannagel_9358-Copy.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-04-04T14:58:54+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/#\/schema\/person\/5e00f5f2ab9dc0c9672d91f3666e7572\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Fr.-Luke-Spannagel_9358-Copy.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Fr.-Luke-Spannagel_9358-Copy.jpg\",\"width\":500,\"height\":501},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Pastor’s Letter: April 6, 2025\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/\",\"name\":\"St. Philomena Catholic Church\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/#\/schema\/person\/5e00f5f2ab9dc0c9672d91f3666e7572\",\"name\":\"chadmin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7ded2ff7c26a780bffc380e3c5959dc4aa8a8b7bd3fb1899fe03ebfb94180bec?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7ded2ff7c26a780bffc380e3c5959dc4aa8a8b7bd3fb1899fe03ebfb94180bec?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7ded2ff7c26a780bffc380e3c5959dc4aa8a8b7bd3fb1899fe03ebfb94180bec?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"chadmin\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/author\/chadmin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Pastor's Letter: April 6, 2025 - St. Philomena Catholic Church","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"chadmin","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/"},"author":{"name":"chadmin","@id":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/#\/schema\/person\/5e00f5f2ab9dc0c9672d91f3666e7572"},"headline":"Pastor’s Letter: April 6, 2025","datePublished":"2025-04-04T14:58:54+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/"},"wordCount":953,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Fr.-Luke-Spannagel_9358-Copy.jpg","articleSection":["Fr. Luke Spannagel","Pastor's Weekly Letter"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/","url":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/","name":"Pastor's Letter: April 6, 2025 - St. Philomena Catholic Church","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Fr.-Luke-Spannagel_9358-Copy.jpg","datePublished":"2025-04-04T14:58:54+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/#\/schema\/person\/5e00f5f2ab9dc0c9672d91f3666e7572"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Fr.-Luke-Spannagel_9358-Copy.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Fr.-Luke-Spannagel_9358-Copy.jpg","width":500,"height":501},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/pastors-letter-april-6-2025\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Pastor’s Letter: April 6, 2025"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/","name":"St. Philomena Catholic Church","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/#\/schema\/person\/5e00f5f2ab9dc0c9672d91f3666e7572","name":"chadmin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7ded2ff7c26a780bffc380e3c5959dc4aa8a8b7bd3fb1899fe03ebfb94180bec?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7ded2ff7c26a780bffc380e3c5959dc4aa8a8b7bd3fb1899fe03ebfb94180bec?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7ded2ff7c26a780bffc380e3c5959dc4aa8a8b7bd3fb1899fe03ebfb94180bec?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"chadmin"},"url":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/author\/chadmin\/"}]}},"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6254,"href":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6253\/revisions\/6254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stphils.com\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}