Passiontide
Veiling the statues.
This Sunday we enter a period of time in the church calendar called Passiontide. It starts the Sunday before Palm Sunday and ends on Holy Saturday.
We’ll keep the crosses covered until the end of the Celebration of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday (3pm), but we’ll keep the statues veiled until the start of the Easter Vigil (in our case that means we’ll remove them during the Gloria at the 10am Mass on Easter Sunday).
But why do we do this? Why cover those things that draw us to Christ the rest of the year?
Partly we do this because it serves to heighten our experience in church in the last two weeks of Lent – calling us physically to the importance of this period of time and pulling us towards the inevitability of Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
We do that by covering the statues so that we’re physically reminded to pay attention to the words that are being spoken in mass.
We are denied the pleasures of our eyes so that our ears may more fully engage with the Word.
The point is that it pulls us into a new state of excitement and anticipation – we are denied the beauty of the statues, the security of the crucifixes and we’re edged towards the reality of what is to come.
Then, beautiful – the veils are removed and we are thrown back into the richness of our faith.
During Passiontide we should pay close attention to how our feelings draw us to – or push us away from – God.
Listen, watch, pray, He will soon be gone, only to return in Glory.
Fr. Matthew
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We welcome Fr. Yaro to preach this Sunday – he joins us from St. Martin’s in Ruislip where he is the Assistant Curate – I know you’ll make him feel welcome.
The Electoral Roll is now open ahead of our APCM on May 9th. The Roll is open for 14 days. If you wish to be added to the Roll take a form at the back of church or speak to Fr. Matthew or Gleta Murray.
If you can’t get to this Confirmation Class, then another will be run on April 11th.
Don’t forget to consider setting up regular giving with the Parish Giving Scheme. Call 0333 002 1271 with your bank details to hand and quote our Parish Code – 230 623 503