LITURGICAL NUGGET- IS THIS SUNDAY THE BEGINNING OF THE "PASSIONTIDE"? ACTUALLY, NOT ANYMORE.

One of the changes the liturgical reform brought along with the 1955 Holy Week revisions, was that Passion Sunday was formally renamed from Dominica Passionis ("Sunday of the Passion") to Dominica I Passionis, "First Sunday of the Passion" or "First Sunday of Passiontide". Palm Sunday, formerly Dominica in Palmis ("Sunday in Palms") became Dominica II Passionis seu in Palmis ("II Sunday of the Passion or in Palms").

Since the revision of the General Roman Calendar in 1969, the name "Passiontide" is no longer used for the last two weeks of Lent, although the former usage is somewhat preserved in the formal name for the Sunday before Easter, "Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion". However, the Preface called that of the Passion of the Lord I (The Power of the Cross) is used in the fifth week of Lent:

-Lift up your hearts.
-We lift them up to the Lord.
-Let us give thanks to the Lord, our God.
-It is right and just.
-It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God, through Christ our Lord.
For through the saving Passion of your Son
the whole world has received a heart
to confess the infinite power of your majesty,
since by the wondrous power of the Cross
your judgment on the world is now revealed
and the authority of Christ crucified.

We must bear in mind that during the Preface, we spiritually are lifted up to heaven, from where we contemplate in awe a significant aspect of the present Mass we are celebrating, and from there in the height, we sing together with the choirs of the angels the same way the sing in the Book of Revelation to adore the Triune God: "Holy, Holy, Holy...". With the liturgical reform of the Vatican II, the Church wanted to make this elevation more sacramentally visible by making a change to the rubrics: the celebrant priest know must keep his arms extended from the point he says "Lift up your hearts" and all the way through the preface, to symbolize precisely that he (with us) is "flying up" to where the choirs of angels dwell.

The Preface is one of the latreutic parts of Mass. That is, it is one of the moments when we worship God. Many faithful make the mistake of not paying attention to the Preface. They just let the priest sing it by himself and at the end respond "Holy, Holy, Holy". But we all must actually pay attention to what he says. Otherwise, what are we adoring God for?

On this fifth Sunday of Lent, the practice of covering crosses and images throughout the church may be observed. Crosses remain covered until after the celebration of the Lord's Passion on Good Friday, but images remain covered until the beginning of the Easter Vigil in the Holy Night.

Be passionate about our faith!
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© Mauricio I. Pérez | All rights reserved.