Passiontide Begins...

When I first came back to the Church and took an interest in things liturgical, I was vaguely aware that there was an option to veil statues in the week before Holy Week. I understood that the statues and crucifixes were veiled because Christ hid himself (John 8: 59) before finally entering Jerusalem for his Passion, but I wasn't aware of any reason for having this done a week before Holy Week rather than, say, the beginning of Lent.

I'd never heard the term "Passiontide" and, in any case, I would have thought it referred to Holy Week, because, in the Novus Ordo, Palm Sunday is also called Passion Sunday. I thought that "Passion Sunday" referred to the reading of the Passion at Mass from one of the Synoptic Gospels.

Of course, when one attends the Extraordinary Form of Mass, all becomes clear. Passion Sunday is actually the week before Palm Sunday, and the Gospel reading is the one ending "Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple."

Clifford Carvalho put things very well:

"...we begin the season of Passiontide. It is when our Lenten practices get even more intense. We started light during Septuagesima. We got more intense during Lent. Now we get even more intense during Passiontide."

The gradual heightening of awareness as one approaches the Triduum is something to treasure. I would often get quite annoyed because Ash Wednesday would catch me unprepared - especially if Easter was early - but, in the Extraordinary calendar there's a countdown - we start with Septuagesima Sunday and work our way up to Lent, which is plenty of time to consider how we can mark the penitential season. And then, after the brief respite offered by Laetare Sunday, we plunge into Passiontide, aware that this is the final push before the intensity of the Triduum and Easter Sunday, and it allows us to recoup our flagging enthusiasm for our Lenten efforts.

Of course, it's only if one is involved in veiling the statues, crucifixes and images of saints that one realises how many of them there actually are...

A happy and holy Passiontide to you all!

UPDATE: The inimitable Fr. Z has an excellent post on the gradual intensification of the penitential season, along with a poll about whether you have veiling at your parish.