Passion Sunday

Santa Veronica, Vatican

The fifth Sunday of Lent is Passion Sunday and marks the beginning of Passiontide, the last two weeks of Lent. The first of the two weeks is known as Passion Week, and the second as Holy Week. During this period all sacred images (statues, icons, etc.), except for the Stations of the Cross, are veiled with violet cloth, signifying Christ’s hiding from the Jews (John 8:59) until he entered Jerusalem (commemorated on Palm Sunday). The Júdica Me psalm and Glória Patri doxology are omitted from the Masses for the same reason. The images will remain covered until the Glória is sung on Holy Saturday, which signals the ending of Lent and the beginning of Eastertide. During this solemn stretch, meditation on the Passion of Christ (the suffering and death of our Lord) is to be our principal point of focus.

In celebration, I’m posting the anthem and prayer for Passiontide from Blessed Be God: A Complete Catholic Prayer Book by Very Rev. Charles J. Callan, OP., S.T.M. and Very Rev. John A. McHugh, OP., S.T.M (Preserving Christian Publications, 2010). The accompanying photo of Santa Veronica by Francesco Mochi was taken during my 2007 pilgrimage to St. Peter’s Basilica. On this day in Rome, the Sudarium, or Veil of Veronica, used to wipe the Volto Santo (Holy Face) of Jesus while He marched the Via Dolorossa (Sorrowful Path) to Golgotha is briefly revealed for veneration.

A Prayer for Passiontide

Ant. It behooves us to glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whom is our salvation, life, and resurrection, by Whom we are saved and delivered.
V. Spare, O Lord, spare Thy people.
R. Whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy Precious Blood.

Let us pray
O God, Whom to love above all is righteousness, multiply in us the gifts of Thy ineffable grace; and since Thou hast given us, in the death of Thy Son, to hope for those things which we believe grant us in the Resurrection of the same to attain the end to which we aspire. Who liveth and reigneth forever and ever. Amen.