April 5, 2022 at 4:23 p.m.
Passiontide and covering statues
Passiontide and covering statues
Passiontide brings Christians into “deep Lent” — a time to focus more intensely on the Passion and Death of the Lord. We are drawing close to the celebration of the entire Paschal Mystery — the passion, death and resurrection of Christ, observed on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday. During this time, before these events take place in the Liturgy, the Church makes visual our anticipation of the Lord’s sacrifice, and the events soon relived.
Though optional, many churches would cover the crucifix and statues on the Fifth Sunday in Lent to remind parishioners not to be distracted from focused meditation on the Lord’s self-offering in the coming weeks. This old custom was an effective one. When we see our familiar saintly “friends” hidden away, we are surprised and a sense that there is a change about to happen takes root in the heart. We think to ourselves, something stunning is about to happen! A sense of emptiness enters our souls, even a sense of fear and impending catastrophe. We become full of questions as to what’s up. The covered statues interrupt worthy devotions to Mary, Joseph and the saints.
Usual mental images about the beauty and security of our faith are sidelined. The purple, the coverings, the starkness in the church are all intended to encourage in us more direct reflection about the suffering Christ, about the ignominious death he would endure, and about his radical self-gift for the reconciliation of the world and us. We are turned inward with a cosmetic but profound confrontation that began on the Fifth Sunday in Lent. We are, in a sense, being forced to look straight at the foundational mystery of our Catholic faith — the humility of the Son of God, the selfishness of our humanity, the ugliness of sin and the Father’s overriding love, won for us by his Son on a wooden cross.
In the past, great sacred music has been written for the liturgies during Passiontide. The Latin poem (which we sing at the Stations of the Cross), “Stabat Mater,” describes Mary standing with her Son as he carries his cross. The Feast of the Seven Sorrows of Mary is observed during this time. Great hymns like “O Sacred Head Surrounded” and “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” are profoundly moving meditations about the sufferings inflicted on the humanity of Christ.
Let us enter the spirit of Passiontide this year, these last two weeks — which have already begun — of our 40-day Lenten journey, undistracted and with eyes riveted on the wood of the cross. There, awestruck, we can revel in the greatness of a God whose Son did all this to set us free.
Father Morrette is pastor at The Catholic Community of Our Lady of Victory in Troy, Mission Our Lady of the Snow in Grafton and Christ Sun of Justice Parish in Troy.
250 X 250 AD
250 X 250 AD
Events
250 X 250 AD
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