Passion Sunday: Behavior At Mass
by VP
Posted on Sunday March 22, 2026 at 03:00AM in Sunday Sermons
“But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple." -St. John viii. 59.
"We gather from the Gospels that our Divine Saviour frequented the Jewish Temple. Whenever He came to Jerusalem, His first visit was to the Temple, and while He remained in the City of Sion most of His time was passed in the Temple. This, the great sanctuary of the Old Dispensation, was, without doubt, the true Temple of God, and our Blessed Lord loved its courts; for here alone was His Heavenly Father truly known and glorified among men. And, although the Old Law was soon to be superseded by the New, and the Temple and its sacrifices were to pass away for ever, yet the Divine Redeemer jealously guarded its honor to the last. He could not tolerate the least irreverence or profanation within its sacred precincts.
If you recollect, the only time that our meek and gentle Lord gave way to angry indignation, and acted with downright severity, was when He found the buyers and sellers in the Temple. Inflamed with holy zeal at the sight of such profanation, He at once turned upon the sacrilegious traffickers and drove them and their wares out of the Temple, using a scourge and saying: "Take these things hence, and make not the house of My Father a house of traffic." Nor did they stand on the order of their going, for they recognized in the indignant countenance and commanding presence of Jesus Christ the manifestation of Divine displeasure.
Now, the attitude of our Lord Jesus Christ towards the old Jewish Temple teaches us two very important lessons-first, to love the House of God and to frequent it; and second, to behave with the greatest reverence within its walls. Surely the Lord of the Temple did not need to honor it. Yet, behold, His attachment for it, how often He visited it, and how incensed He was against all who profaned it! And if the sanctuary of the Old Law was so sacred in the eyes of our Lord Jesus Christ, how much more so the sanctuaries of the New Law? Was it not said of Him that "zeal for God's house hath consumed Him?" And do we not find that those amongst us who have most of the Spirit of Christ imitate Him in this also? Good Christians love the House of God; they visit it often, and they are full of reverence for it. While, on the other hand, there is no more infallible sign of a coarse and tepid Christian spirit than irreverence in the Temple of God. People whom you see enter the church laughing and talking, have little or no sense of worship; they come rather for appearance' sake, like the Sadducees of old.
People whom you find neglecting church Sunday after Sunday, have nothing of the Spirit of Christ; they are merely baptized heathens. There is no truer test of our religious spirit than this.
What is our attitude towards the House of God? Do we love to frequent it? Do we act with due reverence in it? If we are indifferent or irreverent, our religion is a mere sentiment, and our worship worse than a pretence. Let those who talk in church, the slothful Christians who straggle in late to church, the negligent Christians who seldom enter the church at all, ask themselves how our Lord Jesus Christ must regard their conduct. Surely He would use the lash upon them, or He would withdraw from them as He did from the sacrilegious Jews in the Temple. I greatly fear our Blessed Saviour would find much to displease Him in our churches. He might, perhaps, even find a den of thieves, and in many of the organ galleries He would find dens of impious flirts and gossipers.
Oh! my dear brethren, let us imitate the Blessed Saviour in His love and reverence for the Temple of God; let us frequent its sacred precincts, and never, by word or act, be guilty of the slightest irreverence within its walls. Let us teach our children to behave with the utmost decorum before the altar; let them understand that no word should there be spoken that is not addressed to the throne of God. And then we shall not grieve the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so soon to bleed for us on Calvary." Passion Sunday- Five Minute Sermons by the Paulist Fathers 1893
Saint Lea of Rome, Widow, A.D. 384
by VP
Posted on Sunday March 22, 2026 at 03:00AM in Saints
"She was a rich Roman lady. After the death of her husband, entering into a monastery, she was chosen abbess; and by her exemplary piety promoted all good. She had now sackcloth to succeed that rich attire, which she had worn in her conjugal state, and haircloth to take the place of her fine linen. The nights formerly wasted in entertainments, she now employs in prayer, and having been attended by many servants, she is now the servant of all. In this state of penance and humility, without any mixture of affectation, she lived till God called her to the possession of what she had sought. St. Jerome has recorded the virtues of this holy widow. He observes that in her austerities and good works, she carefully avoided all ostentation, lest she might receive her reward in this world, and not in the next. Now however she enjoys eternal rest for her short labour; she is received by choirs of angels, and cherished in Abraham's bosom.
The present season of Lent is a time of penance proper for following such an example. Look upon your sins, and see if justice does not demand it of you: there will be trouble in the practice; but this is one of those troubles, which will be turned into joy. Let this example be always before you. Take necessity for your rule, and keeping your eye upon it, come as near it as you can. Let it be before you at your table, in your clothing, sleeping, and diversions. You cannot depart many degrees from it, but with the danger of sin. To exceed in sleep is sloth and laziness; it has no great horror in its appearance, but is the forerunner of all evils. To exceed, or be nice in diet, is self-love and luxury; to exceed in dress, is pride and injustice, seeking honour for what deserves contempt. Think of this seriously, taking your measures not from the world, but from the Gospel; and you will soon find reason to retrench. Ask grace to follow the dictates of such reason. Look well to your own state; and as far as you see penance and forsaking any part of this world necessary for your amendment, resolve heartily upon undertaking it. Let no niceness or self-love link you to your sins, and hinder the effects of mercy. Who knows if you shall have another opportunity given you?" Source: The Catholic Year by Rev. Fr. John Gother 1861
Day 33. Lent with the Cure d'Ars: Catechism on Suffering
by VP
Posted on Sunday March 22, 2026 at 02:00AM in Lenten Sermons
"Whether we will it or not, we must suffer. There are some who suffer like the good thief, and others like the bad thief. They both suffered equally. But one knew how to make his sufferings meritorious, he accepted them in the spirit of reparation, and turning towards Jesus crucified, he received from His mouth these beautiful words: "This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise. " The other, on the contrary, cried out, uttered imprecations and blasphemies, and expired in the most frightful despair. There are two ways of suffering - to suffer with love, and to suffer without love. The saints suffered everything with joy, patience, and perseverance, because they loved. As for us, we suffer with anger, vexation, and weariness, because we do not love. If we loved God, we should love crosses, we should wish for them, we should take pleasure in them. . . . We should be happy to be able to suffer for the love of Him who lovingly suffered for us. Of what do we complain? Alas! the poor infidels, who have not the happiness of knowing God and His infinite loveliness, have the same crosses that we have; but they have not the same consolations. You say it is hard? No, it is easy, it is consoling, it is sweet; it is happiness. Only we must love while we suffer, and suffer while we love.
On the Way of the Cross, you see, my children, only the first step is painful. Our greatest cross is the fear of crosses. . . . We have not the courage to carry our cross, and we are very much mistaken; for, whatever we do, the cross holds us tight - we cannot escape from it. What, then, have we to lose? Why not love our crosses and make use of them to take us to Heaven? But, on the contrary, most men turn their backs upon crosses, and fly before them. The more they run, the more the cross pursues them, the more it strikes and crushes them with burdens. . . . If you were wise, you would go to meet it like St. Andrew, who said, when he saw the cross prepared for him and raised up into the air, "Hail O good cross! O admirable cross! O desirable cross! receive me into thine arms, withdraw me from among men, and restore me to my Master, who redeemed me through thee."
Listen attentively to this, my children: He who goes to meet the cross, goes in the opposite direction to crosses; he meets them, perhaps, but he is pleased to meet them; he loves them; he carries them courageously. They unite him to Our Lord; they purify him; they detach him from this world; they remove all obstacles from his heart; they help him to pass through life, as a bridge helps us to pass over water. . . . Look at the saints; when they were not persecuted, they persecuted themselves. A good religious complained one day to Our Lord that he was persecuted. He said, "O Lord, what have I done to be treated thus?" Our Lord answered him, "And I, what had I done when I was led to Calvary?" Then the religious understood; he wept, he asked pardon, and dared not complain any more. Worldly people are miserable when they have crosses, and good Christians are miserable when they have none. The Christian lives in the midst of crosses, as the fish lives in the sea.
Look at St. Catherine; she has two crowns, that of purity and that of martyrdom: how happy she is, that dear little saint, to have chosen to suffer rather than to consent to sin! There was once a religious who loved suffering so much that he had fastened the rope from a well round his body; this cord had rubbed off the skin, and had by degrees buried itself in the flesh, out of which worms came. His brethren asked that he should be sent out of the community. He went away happy and pleased, to hide himself in a rocky cavern. But the same night the Superior heard Our Lord saying to him: "Thou hast lost the treasure of thy house." Then they went to fetch back this good saint, and they wanted to see from whence these worms came. The Superior had the cord taken off, which was done by turning back the flesh. At last he got well.
Very near this, in a neighboring parish, there was a little boy in bed, covered with sores, very ill, and very miserable; I said to him, "My poor little child, you are suffering very much!" He answered me, "No, sir; today I do not feel the pain I had yesterday, and tomorrow I shall not suffer from the pain I have now:' "You would like to get well?" "No; I was naughty before I was ill, and I might be so again. I am very well as I am. " We do not understand that, because we are too earthly. Children in whom the Holy Ghost dwells put us to shame.
If the good God sends us crosses, we resist, we complain, we murmur; we are so averse to whatever contradicts us, that we want to be always in a box of cotton: but we ought to be put into a box of thorns. It is by the Cross that we go to Heaven. Illnesses, temptations, troubles, are so many crosses which take us to Heaven. All this will soon be over. . . . Look at the saints, who have arrived there before us. . . . The good God does not require of us the martyrdom of the body; He requires only the martyrdom of the heart, and of the will. . . . Our Lord is our model; let us take up our cross, and follow Him. Let us do like the soldiers of Napoleon. They had to cross a bridge under the fire of grapeshot; no one dared to pass it. Napoleon took the colours, marched over first, and they all followed. Let us do the same; let us follow Our Lord, who has gone before us.
A soldier was telling me one day that during a battle he had marched for half an hour over dead bodies; there was hardly space to tread upon; the ground was all dyed with blood. Thus on the road of life we must walk over crosses and troubles to reach our true country. The cross is the ladder to Heaven. . . . How consoling it is to suffer under the eyes of God, and to be able to say in the evening, at our examination of conscience: "Come, my soul! thou hast had today two or three hours of resemblance to Jesus Christ. Thou hast been scourged, crowned with thorns, crucified with Him!" Oh what a treasure for the hour of death! How sweet it is to die, when we have lived on the cross! We ought to run after crosses as the miser runs after money. . . . Nothing but crosses will reassure us at the Day of Judgment. When that day shall come, we shall be happy in our misfortunes, proud of our humiliations, and rich in our sacrifices!
If someone said to you, "I should like to become rich; what must I do?" you would answer him, "You must labor". Well, in order to get to Heaven, we must suffer. Our Lord shows us the way in the person of Simon the Cyrenian; He calls His friends to carry His Cross after Him. The good God wishes us never to lose sight of the Cross, therefore it is placed everywhere; by the roadside, on the heights, in the public squares - in order that at the sight of it we may say, "See how God has loved us!" The Cross embraces the world; it is planted at the four corners of the world; there is a share of it for all. Crosses are on the road to Heaven like a fine bridge of stone over a river, by which to pass it. Christians who do not suffer pass this river by a frail bridge, a bridge of wire, always ready to give way under their feet.
He who does not love the Cross may indeed be saved, but with great difficulty: he will be a little star in the firmament. He who shall have suffered and fought for his God will shine like a beautiful sun. Crosses, transformed by the flames of love, are like a bundle of thorns thrown into the fire, and reduced by the fire to ashes. The thorns are hard, but the ashes are soft. Oh, how much sweetness do souls experience that are all for God in suffering! It is like a mixture into which one puts a great deal of oil: the vinegar remains vinegar; but the oil corrects its bitterness, and it can scarcely be perceived.
If you put fine grapes into the wine press, there will come out a delicious juice: our soul, in the wine press of the Cross, gives out a juice that nourishes and strengthens it. When we have no crosses, we are arid: if we bear them with resignation, we feel a joy, a happiness, a sweetness! . . . it is the beginning of Heaven. The good God, the Blessed Virgin, the angels, and the saints, surround us; they are by our side, and see us. The passage to the other life of the good Christian tried by affliction, is like that of a person being carried on a bed of roses. Thorns give out a perfume, and the Cross breathes forth sweetness. But we must squeeze the thorns in our hands, and press the Cross to our heart, that they may give out the juice they contain.
The Cross gave peace to the world; and it must bring peace to our hearts. All our miseries come from not loving it. The fear of crosses increases them. A cross carried simply, and without those returns of self-love which exaggerate troubles, is no longer a cross. Peaceable suffering is no longer suffering. We complain of suffering! We should have much more reason to complain of not suffering, since nothing makes us more like Our Lord than carrying His Cross. Oh, what a beautiful union of the soul with Our Lord Jesus Christ by the love and the virtue of His Cross! I do not understand how a Christian can dislike the Cross, and fly from it! Does he not at the same time fly from Him who has deigned to be fastened to it, and to die for us?
Contradictions bring us to the foot of the Cross, and the Cross to the gate of Heaven. That we may get there, we must be trodden upon, we must be set at naught, despised, crushed. . . . There are no happy people in this world but those who enjoy calmness of mind in the midst of the troubles of life: they taste the joys of the children of God. . . . All pains are sweet when we suffer in union with Our Lord. . . . To suffer! what does it signify? It is only a moment. If we could go and pass a week in Heaven, we should understand the value of this moment of suffering. We should find no cross heavy enough, no trial bitter enough. . . . The Cross is the gift that God makes to His friends.
How beautiful it is to offer ourselves every morning in sacrifice to the good God, and to accept everything in expiation of our sins! We must ask for the love of crosses; then they become sweet.
I tried it for four or five years. I was well calumniated, well contradicted, well knocked about. Oh, I had crosses indeed! I had almost more than I could carry! Then I took to asking for love of crosses, and I was happy. I said to myself, truly there is no happiness but in this! We must never think from whence crosses come: they come from God. It is always God who gives us this way of proving our love to Him."
Source: The Blessed Curé of Ars in His Catechetical Instructions, 1951
Prayer for Lent: O Lord who, for our sake, didst fast forty days and forty nights; give us grace to use such abstinence that, our flesh being subdued to the spirit, we may worthily lament and acknowledge our wretchedness, and may obtain perfect remission and forgiveness of Thee, the God of all mercy, who livest and reignest with the Father and Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen
Source: Lent with the Cure d'Ars Compiled by the CAPGFifth Sunday of Lent: Passion Sunday
by VP
Posted on Sunday March 22, 2026 at 12:00AM in Tradition
A cross veiled during Passiontide in Lent (Pfarrkirche St. Martin in Tannheim, Baden Württemberg, Germany).
Passion Sunday: This Sunday is called Passion Sunday because the Church begins on this day to make the Sufferings of our Redeemer her chief thought. It is called also Judica from the first word of the Introit of the Mass and again Neomania that is the Sunday of the new or the Easter moon, because it always falls after the new moon, which regulates the Feast of Easter Day. Dom Gueranger.
Roman Missal: “In the Dioceses of the United States, the practice of covering crosses and images throughout the church from [the fifth] Sunday [of Lent] may be observed. Crosses remain covered until the end of the Celebration of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday, but images remain covered until the beginning of the Easter Vigil.”
Source: Why Passion Sunday and Palm Sunday were once two different Sundays (Aletia)
On Passion Sunday.
"The whole Lent is consecrated particularly to honor and commemorate the adorable sufferings and death of our Divine Redeemer, which are indeed at all times, by His express institution and command, the daily great object in all our devotions, which can only be made acceptable through this great mystery; and the Holy Mass and Communion are nothing else but its unbloody exhibition. But the two last weeks of Lent, and particularly the latter, being the annual commemoration of these most adorable of all mysteries, the church makes them the entire object of her public office. To conform to her pious views, we must in them redouble our fervor, especially in our spirit of holy mourning and penance, adapted to this season. Before the first vespers of Passion Sunday, the cross, and all pictures and images in the churches are covered with purple, or at least dark colored veils, on which no image ought to be represented. By this nakedness in her ornaments the church appears more solemnly mournful. It is likewise represented, that Christ, before His passion, did not walk in public; but lay for some time hid for fear of His enemies, as we read in the Gospel on Passion Sunday. The church also omits the Gloria Patri, and the like doxologies, in many parts of her public office, to express the excess of her mourning, and excite her children to attend on her solemn prayers in the most serious spirit of compunction, that, bowed down under the weight of our sorrows and iniquities, (Baruch. ii.) we may offer to God the sacrifice of our tears, which are as it were the blood of the heart, immolated by holy grief, and poured forth before God, according to the beautiful expression of S. Austin. In proportion to the fervor of our penitence, will be the earnestness of our desires and endeavors to rise from sin, in which we shall spare no pains or care to destroy it in our hearts, and exert our strength in our utmost efforts, in waging war against, and in subduing our irregular appetites, and in crying to God for mercy, in the words of the royal penitent and prophet. (Ps. vi.; xxxiv.) The soul which sees herself the object of His anger, and considers, that though His very essence is goodness and mercy, and His divine heart nothing but love and charity itself; yet by sin He is frozen toward her, and His omnipotence armed to take revenge on her rebellions, by which she has provoked His indignation, must be alarmed and terrified. Therefore, she must be solicitous, especially at this holy time, by every means which God in His infinite mercy has instituted, to engage Him to reinstate her in His favor, and to enrich her with His most precious graces, through the mediatorship of Christ, and through His holy sufferings and death, which the church now especially commemorates, and by which pardon and all graces are purchased for us, and offered to us." Source: The Moveable Feasts, Fasts, and Other Annual Observances of the Catholic Church by Rev. Alban Butler 1839
