07 April 2019

Passiontide – Veiling of Images in Churches

Even after 60 years, I'm still always a bit surprised, when I go to Mass on Passion Sunday, that the statues are veiled.

From Fr Z's Blog

We with Vespers today we have arrived at Passiontide.
From this Sunday, traditionally called 1st Sunday of the Passion, it is customary to veil images in churches.
In the Gospel in traditional Form of the Roman Rite we hear:
Tulérunt ergo lápides, ut iácerent in eum: Iesus autem abscóndit se, et exívit de templo. …
They therefore took up stones to cast at Him; but Jesus hid Himself, and went out from the temple.
And so, on this Sunday, the Church traditionally hides the Lord and other images with veils, usually purple.
This is a fine old tradition. It has to do with deprivation of the senses and the liturgical dying of the Church in preparation for the Lord’s tomb and resurrection. We do this to sense something of the humiliation of the Lord as he enters His Passion, something of His interior suffering.
We are also being pruned during Lent. From Septuagesima onward we lose things bit by bit in the Church’s sacred liturgy until, at the Vigil, we are even deprived of light itself. The Church is liturgically dying so she can enter the tomb with her Lord and rise with Him.
Last year at St. Mary’s in Pine Bluff.

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