This weekend you will notice that the statues in our churches are covered with violet veils. It is part of a very old tradition that on the fifth week of Lent images are veiled to mark our entrance into what’s called Passiontide, the final two weeks of Lent. Lent can seem like a disorienting time. Our Lenten disciplines deprive us of some of the comforts we usually enjoy. Flowers no longer decorate our church sanctuaries. And in the liturgy, we remove some of the familiar parts of the Mass, such as the Gloria and the Alleluia. While these things might seem disorienting, they actually are intended to reorient us and focus us on what lies ahead. The veiling of images does this in a particularly intense way, reminding us that next week is Palm Sunday, which ushers in the holiest days of the year.
The veiling of statues and images is one of my favorite Lenten traditions. By hiding them from view, we somehow notice them, or at least we notice how much they mean to us. Their sudden absence stirs up in us a longing to see them. It works in a way not all that different from a children’s game of hide-and-go-seek. The child who is “it” knows that other children have hidden themselves throughout the house, and he becomes fixated on trying to find them. Now, I’ve witnessed first-hand how difficult it is to get a child to look for a missing shoe, especially when you need to be somewhere and you’re already running late. But a child will happily spend hours looking for a friend or a cousin who has hidden himself somewhere, just waiting to be found. That’s because he knows that if he searches long enough, his perseverance will be rewarded with the discovery of someone he loves.
The hidden images in our churches should evoke something similar within us. Knowing that they are missing for only a time, we simply need to persevere in sure and certain hope of seeing them again at Easter. But we also keep in mind that the first image to be unveiled is the cross, which is exposed at the liturgy of Good Friday. This reminds us that the Passion culminates with Our Lord’s suffering and death on the cross for our sins, after which He is hidden in the tomb. Our minds focused on the cross of the suffering Christ, we find ourselves longing to encounter the risen Christ, who by passing through the veil of death destroyed death’s power when He rose again victorious on Easter Sunday. During the remaining days of this otherwise disorienting season of Lent, the cross should be our focus. It should move us to expose the sins we bear hidden in our hearts to Jesus in the sacrament of confession, and to seek sustenance from His living Flesh and Blood, hidden under the appearance of bread and wine.
posted 4/5/25
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 