With the Fifth Sunday of Lent, we of the Roman Church enter into Passiontide. Since time immemorial it has been called 1st Passion Sunday. During the last two weeks of Lent, Holy Church’s liturgical dying speeds up. Motus in fine velocior.
In the traditional calendar, we began liturgically to slow down and die on Septuagesima Sunday of Fore-Lent, when the Alleluia drops away from Holy Mass and violet is used thenceforth on Sundays. During Lent we lose the Gloria. With Passiontide, more liturgical items drop away, just as certain faculties and aspects of our lives depart as we approach our own earthly end. For example, in traditional form of Mass the Iudica psalm is left out during the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, and the Gloria Patri is omitted after the Asperges, Introit and Lavabo. This is the Sunday when the Church begins to deprive our senses: all statues and images are covered with violet veils.
