PASSION SUNDAY
First Sunday of the Passion
Passiontide
During these last two weeks of Lent, leading up to Easter, the Church is at pains to make us relive with her the events which went before and surrounded our Savior's death, and which, above all others, were decisive in effecting the salvation of the world.
Passiontide, by its close connection with Eastertide even now sets before us our
redemption in the blood of Jesus, but it is the remembrance of the sufferings of Christ and the humiliation of His Passion to which the Church now turns particular attention. Before applying to our souls the fruits of Grace in the triumphant celebration of our Savior's Resurrection, she desires to make us follow Christ step by step in the dire struggle which He underwent in order to redeem us.
Thus the long retreat of Lent draws to a close, as we contemplate that unique contest, which could alone wrest men from sin and earn salvation for him. It is essential that we should be reminded of this and it is a source of great consolation for us. Our personal effort at self-correction and reparation is not thereby rendered useless, but it is only effective and of value in union with the Passion of Him who took on Himself the sins of the world and expiated them all. Through that mysterious solidarity, which exists between all members of the human family, Jesus, Son of God made man, takes the place of His guilty brethren. He takes our sins upon Him.... "He was made sin for us," says St. Paul, "So as to bear our sins in His Body, on a tree."
But Christ was victorious in the very act of His self-immolation. He triumphs over evil, and over Satan; He re-establishes God's rights over the world and the devil; the "prince of this world," is cast out. David's prophesy is fulfilled "God reigns from the tree."
At the very heart of Holy Week, when on Good Friday the Church is plunged in sorrow in memory of our Savior's Death, she brings us before the Cross to hail in it the source of our joy. "Behold, the wood of the Cross on which the salvation of the world was hung; come let us adore it." And already we are conscious of the Resurrection: "We adore Your Cross, Lord, we praise and glorify Your Resurrection. For by the wood of the Cross joy came unto the whole world."
The austere character of Lent increases. The Church veils the Alter, the statues of the Saints, with purple; on Maundy Thrusday she strips the Altar, and silences the organ as well as the bells. Thus the interior of the Church, where so many graces are bestowed on the Faithful, and worship is celebrated with a certain pomp, takes on an aspect of unaccustomed mourning.
In the Liturgy of Passiontide nothing is more striking than the contrast which the Church puts before us between Christ exposed to the growing hatred of His adversaries and Christ in His greatness as God, who controls all events and effecting our Redemption. The Gospel brings this out very clearly, as well as the Epistle; on the threshold of these two important weeks it puts before us Jesus, as not only the unspotted Victim of the sacrifice who is making Himself ready for it, but also the High Priest of the new covenant who, bearing His own Blood, enters Heaven as our triumphant Redeemer.
End