With Passion Sunday, the Catholic Church begins its solemn celebration of Passiontide. It is the final stretch before the great solemnities of the Sacred Triduum and Easter. It is a time for deep reflection on the chief mysteries of our faith and a call for us to amend our lives in the light of Our Lord’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection, which we will celebrate during Holy Week.
If you have been to a church lately, you might have noticed that the statues have been covered up. This is something extremely special during this time of the year and it is done to force us to meditate on Christ’s Passion and all of the things that He did for us. Quite frankly, I like it when the statues are covered up because it spares me a lot of distractions at church, but I know plenty of people who would vociferously disagree with me.
Yet Passiontide is not only about covered up statues. Like I said above, it is a time for deep meditation on Our Lord’s Passion. For the next fourteen days, I would like recommend that each of us meditate in some way on the fourteen stations along the Way of the Cross. Let’s begin today with Christ’s condemnation before Pilate and continue the journey until we reach Our Lord’s burial on Holy Saturday. Rather than meditating on all of these mysteries all at once, it would be much easier for us if we meditated on them one by one.
I would also like to recommend that during this week, we try and accomplish any spring cleaning in our spiritual lives that we have not done. Let us avail ourselves of Confession, frequent Communion, and attendance at Mass. Let us increase whatever penitential practices we have taken up during Lent and let us continue our daily prayers as we always do.
Finally, let us pray for Holy Mother Church and all of her needs and that God will continue to help her.
Our Mother of Perpetual Help, pray for us!
St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori, pray for us!
St. John Baptist de La Salle, pray for us!
