Ecce Homo

Passiontide

The liturgical cycle of the Passion begins with the Mass at the Vatican, where Nero crucified the first Vicar of Christ and where Symmachus had built an oratory named Sancta Hierusalem, as the Sessorian Basilica was originally called, in honor of the triumphant Standard of Redemption (the Holy Cross). The Mass of this Sunday is entirely dominated by the memory of the Sacrifice on Golgotha, and is one of the most beautiful and pathetic in the whole Roman Antiphonary. During the fortnight, the early Orclines Romani forbid the final doxology. In today’s Mass the Judica me is sung at the Introit, and is therefore omitted previous to the Confession before the priest goes up to the altar. The Communion verse expresses the union of the Daily Sacrifice with the Passion of Our Lord. The liturgical celebration of the Passion begins today; the words of Saint Paul (as adapted by the Church) emphasize the commemoration of the sufferings and death of Christ in every reception of Holy Communion. The whole Christian life is linked through its sufferings, austerities, self-denials and sacrifices, with the one and only Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The whole work of salvation is the continuation and completion of the Mystery of our Saviour’s death and resurrection. His Sacrifice sanctifies and consecrates all our sacrifices and makes of them one offering before God. – The Roman Missal

This Friday of Passion Week is consecrated, in a special manner, to the sufferings which the Holy Mother of God endured at the foot of the Cross. As Dom Guéranger explains: the whole of next week is fully taken up with the celebration of the mysteries of Christ’s Passion; and, although the remembrance of the Blessed Virgin’s share in those sufferings is often brought before the Faithful during Holy Week, yet, the thought of what her Son, our Divine Redeemer, goes through for our salvation, so absorbs our attention and love, that it is not then possible to honor, as it deserves, the sublime mystery of the Sorrowful Mother’s compassion.

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PRACTICE DURING PASSIONTIDE AND HOLY WEEK

Holy Mass Schedule
Passion Week

Today – Sunday, March 26th
Passion Sunday

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Friday, March 31st
Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin

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Sacred Triduum Schedule
Holy Week

Holy Thursday, April 6th
Confessions / Rosary – 10:00 AM
High Mass / Procession – 10:30 AM
Conference on the Passion – 1:30 PM
Stations of the Cross – 1:45 PM

Good Friday, April 7th
Confessions / Rosary – 9:45 AM
Mass of the Pre-Sanctified – 10:30 AM
Stations of the Cross – 1:00 PM
Conference on the Passion – 1:45 PM
Sorrowful Mother Devotions – 2:30 PM

Holy Saturday, April 8th
Easter Vigil Ceremonies / Mass – 10:00 AM
Blessing of Easter Baskets – Immediately Following

Easter Sunday, April 9th
Confessions / Rosary – 7:30 AM
Mass of the Resurrection – 8:00 AM

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Amen, amen, I say unto you, before Abraham was made, I am. They took up stones therefore to cast at him. But Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple. – John viii:58

The Holy Church begins her Night Office of this Sunday with these impressive words of the royal Prophet. Formerly, the faithful considered it their duty to assist at the Night Office, at least on Sundays and Feasts; they would have grieved to have lost the grand teachings given by the Liturgy. Such fervor has long since died out; the assiduity at the Offices of the Church, which was the joy of our Catholic forefathers, has now become a thing of the past; and even in countries which have not apostatized from the faith, the clergy have ceased to celebrate publicly Offices at which no one assisted. Excepting in Cathedral Churches and in Monasteries, the grand harmonious system of the Divine Praise has been abandoned, and the marvelous power of the Liturgy has no longer its full influence upon the Faithful.

This is our reason for drawing the attention of our readers to certain beauties of the Divine Office, which would otherwise be totally ignored. Thus, what can be more impressive than this solemn Invitatory of today’s Matins, which the Church takes from one of the psalms, and which she repeats on every Feria between this and Maundy Thursday? She says: Today, if ye shall hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts! The sweet voice of your suffering Jesus now speaks to you, poor sinners! be not your own enemies by indifference and hardness of heart. The Son of God is about to give you the last and greatest proof of the love that brought him down from heaven; his Death is nigh at hand: men are preparing the wood for the immolation of the new Isaac: enter into yourselves, and let not your hearts, after being touched with grace, return to their former obduracy—for nothing could be more dangerous. The great anniversaries we are to celebrate have a renovating power for those souls that faithfully correspond with the grace which is offered them; but they increase insensibility in those who let them pass without working their conversion. Today, therefore, if you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts!

During the preceding four weeks, we have noticed how the malice of Jesus’ enemies has been gradually increasing. His very presence irritates them; and it is evident that any little circumstance will suffice to bring the deep and long nurtured hatred to a head. The kind and gentle manners of Jesus are drawing to him all hearts that are simple and upright; at the same time, the humble life he leads, and the stern purity of his doctrines, are perpetual sources of vexation and anger, both to the proud Jew that looks forward to the Messias being a mighty conqueror, and to the Pharisee, who corrupts the Law of God, that he may make it the instrument of his own base passions. Still, Jesus goes on working miracles; his discourses are more than ever energetic; his prophecies foretell the fall of Jerusalem, and such a destruction of its famous Temple that not a stone is to be left on stone. The doctors of the Law should, at least, reflect upon what they hear; they should examine these wonderful works which render such strong testimony in favor of the Son of David, and they should consult those divine prophecies which, up to the present time, have been so literally fulfilled in his person. Alas! they themselves are about to carry out to the very last iota. There is not a single outrage or suffering foretold by David and Isaias, as having to be put upon the Messias, which these blind men are not scheming to verify.

In them, therefore, was fulfilled that terrible saying: He that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come. The Synagogue is nigh to a curse. Obstinate in her error, she refuses to see or to hear; she has deliberately perverted her judgment: she has extinguished within herself the light of the Holy Spirit; she will go deeper and deeper into evil, and at length fall into the abyss. This same lamentable conduct is but too often witnessed nowadays in those sinners who, by habitual resistance to the light, end by finding their happiness in sin. Neither should it surprise us that we find in people of our own generation a resemblance to the murderers of our Jesus: the history of his Passion will reveal to us many sad secrets of the human heart and its perverse inclinations; for what happened in Jerusalem happens also in every sinner’s heart. His heart, according to the saying of St. Paul, is a Calvary where Jesus is crucified. There is the same ingratitude, the same blindness, the same wild madness, with this difference—that the sinner who is enlightened by faith knows Him whom he crucifies; whereas the Jews, as the same Apostle tells us, knew not the Lord of Glory. While, therefore, we listen to the Gospel, which relates the history of the Passion, let us turn the indignation we feel for the Jews against ourselves and our own sins: let us weep over the sufferings of our Victim, for our sins caused him to suffer and die.

Everything around us urges us to mourn. The images of the Saints, the very crucifix on our Altar, are veiled from our sight. The Church is oppressed with grief. During the first four weeks of Lent, she compassionated her Jesus fasting in the desert; his coming Sufferings and Crucifixion and Death are what now fill her with anguish. We read in today’s Gospel that the Jews threaten to stone the Son of God as a blasphemer: but his hour is not yet come. He is obliged to flee and hide himself. It is to express this deep humiliation that the Church veils the Cross. A God hiding himself, that he may evade the anger of men—what a mystery! Is it weakness? Is it that he fears death? No—we shall soon see him going out to meet his enemies: but at present, he hides himself from them, because all that had been prophesied regarding him has not been fulfilled. Besides, his death is not to be by stoning; he is to die upon a Cross, the tree of malediction which, from that time forward, is to be the Tree of Life. Let us humble ourselves, as we see the Creator of heaven and earth thus obliged to hide himself from men who are bent on his destruction! Let us go back in thought to the sad day of the first sin, when Adam and Eve hid themselves because a guilty conscience told them they were naked. Jesus is come to assure us of our being pardoned! and lo! he hides himself, not because he is naked—He that is to the Saints the garb of holiness and immortality—but because he made himself weak, that he might make us strong. Our First Parents sought to hide themselves from the sight of God; Jesus hides himself from the eye of men; but it will not be thus forever. The day will come when sinners, from whose anger he now flees, will pray to the mountains that they fall on them to shield them from his gaze; but their prayer will not be granted, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with much power and majesty.

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.

In the Greek Church, this Sunday goes under the simple name of the Fifth Sunday of the Holy Fests. 

MASS

At Rome, the Station is in the Basilica of St. Peter. The importance of this Sunday, which never gives way to any Feast, no matter what its solemnity may be, required that the place for the assembly of the Faithful should be in one of the chief Sanctuaries of the Holy City.

The Introit is taken from the first verses of the 42nd Psalm. The Messias appeals to God’s tribunal, and protests against the sentence about to be pronounced against Him by men. He likewise expresses His confidence in His Father’s help, who, after His sufferings and death, will lead Him in triumph into the Holy Mount

The Gloria Patri is not said during Passiontide and Holy Week, (unless a Saint’s Feast be kept) but the Introit is repeated immediately after the Psalm.

In the Collect, the Church prays that there may be produced, in her children, that total reformation which the holy Season of Lent is intended to produce. This reformation is such that it will not only subject the body to the spirit, but preserve also the spirit itself from those delusions and passions to which it has been, hitherto, more or less a slave.

Then is added one of the following Prayers:

It is by Blood alone that man is to be redeemed. He has offended God. This God cannot be appeased by anything short of the extermination of his rebellious creature who, by shedding his blood, will give an earnest of his repentance and his entire submission to the Creator, against whom he dared to rebel. Otherwise, the justice of God must be satisfied by the sinner’s suffering eternal punishment. This truth was understood by all the people of the ancient world, and all confessed it by shedding the blood of victims, as in the sacrifices of Abel, at the very commencement of the world; in the hecatombs of Greece; in the countless immolations whereby Solomon dedicated the Temple. And yet, God thus speaks to his people: Hear, O my people, and I will speak: O Israel, and I will testify to thee: I am God thy God. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices, and thy burnt-offerings are always in my sight. I will not take calves out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy flocks. I need them not: for all the beasts of the woods are mine. If I should be hungry, I would not tell thee; for the world is mine, and the fullness thereof. Shall I eat the flesh of bullocks? or shall I drink the blood of goats? Thus, God commands the blood of victims to be offered to him, and at the same time, declares that neither it nor they are precious in his sight. Is this a contradiction? No: God would hereby have man understand that it is only by Blood that he can be redeemed, but that the blood of brute animals cannot effect this redemption. Can the blood of man himself bring him his own redemption, and appease God’s justice? No, not even man’s blood, for it is defiled; and even were it undefiled, it is powerless to compensate for the outrage done to God by sin. For this, there was needed the Blood of a God, that was the Blood of Jesus, and he has come that he may shed it for our redemption.

In him is fulfilled the most sacred of the figures of the Old Law. Once each year, the High Priest entered into the Holy of Holies, there to make intercession for the people. He went within the Veil, even to the Ark of the Covenant; but he was not allowed to enjoy this great privilege unless he entered the holy place carrying in his hands the blood of a newly offered victim. The Son of God, the true High Priest, is now about to enter heaven, and we are to follow him thither; but unto this, he must have an offering of blood, and that Blood can be none other than his own. We are going to assist at this his compliance with the divine ordinance. Let us open our hearts, that this precious Blood may, as the Apostle says in today’s Epistle, cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

The Gradual is taken from the Psalms. Our Saviour here prays to be delivered from His enemies, and protected from the rage of them that have risen up against Him; yet, is He ready to do the will of His Father, by whom He will be avenged.

In the Tract, which is also taken from the Psalms, the Messias, under the name of Israel, complains of the persecution He has met from the Jews, even from His youth. They are now about to scourge Him in a most cruel manner. But He also foretells the punishment their deicide is to bring upon them.

The fury of the Jews is evidently at its height, and Jesus is obliged to hide himself from them. But he is to fall into their hands before many days are over; then will they triumph and put him to death. They triumph, and Jesus is their victim; but how different is to be his lot from theirs! In obedience to the decrees of his heavenly Father, and out of love for men, he will deliver himself into the hands of his enemies, and they will put him to death; but he will rise victorious from the tomb, he will ascend into heaven, he will be throned on the right hand of his Father. His enemies, on the contrary, after having vented all their rage, will live on without remorse, until the terrible day come for their chastisement. That day is not far off, for observe the severity wherewith our Lord speaks to them: You hear not the words of God, because you are not of God. Yet there was a time when they were of God, for the Lord gives his grace to all men; but they have rendered this grace useless; they are now in darkness, and the light they have rejected will not return.

You say, that my Father is your God, and you have not known him; but I know him. Their obstinacy in refusing to acknowledge Jesus as the Messias has led these men to ignore that very God whom they boast of honoring; for if they knew the Father, they would not reject his Son. Moses, and the Psalms, and the Prophets, are all a dead letter to them; these sacred Books are soon to pass into the hands of the Gentiles, who will both read and understand them. If, continues Jesus, I should say that I know him not, I should be like to you, a liar. This strong language is that of the angry Judge who is to come down, at the last day, to destroy sinners. Jerusalem has not known the time of her visitation: the Son of God has visited her, he is with her, and she dares to say to him: Thou hast a devil! She says to the Eternal Word, who proves himself to be God by the most astounding miracles, that Abraham and the Prophets are greater than He! Strange blindness, that comes from pride and hardness of heart! The Feast of the Pasch is at hand: these men are going to eat, and with much parade of religion, the flesh of the figurative lamb; they know full well that this lamb is a symbol, or a figure, which is to have its fulfillment. The true Lamb is to be sacrificed by their hands, and they will not know him. He will shed his Blood for them, and it will not save them. How this reminds us of those sinners for whom this Easter promises to be as fruitless as those of the past years! Let us redouble our prayers for them, and beseech our Lord to soften their hearts, lest trampling the Blood of Jesus under their feet, they should have it to cry vengeance against them before the throne of the Heavenly Father.

At the Offertory, confiding in the merits of the Blood that has redeemed us, let us, in the words of the Psalm, give praise to God, and proclaim him to be the author of that New Life, of which the sacrifice of the Lamb is the never-failing source.

The sacrifice of the spotless Lamb has produced two effects upon the sinner: it has broken his fetters, and has made him the object of God’s love. The Church prays, in the Secret, that the Sacrifice she is about to offer, and which is one with that of the Cross, may work these same results in us.

The Communion-Antiphon is formed out of the very words spoken by Jesus, when instituting the august Sacrifice that has just been celebrated, and of which the Priest and people have partaken, in memory of the Passion, for it renews both the remembrance and the merits of the Passion.

In the Postcommunion, the Church prays to God, that he would maintain in the Faithful the fruits of the visit he has so graciously paid them, for, by their participation in the Sacred Mysteries, he has entered into them.

From: The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger

Et Verbum caro factum est – And the Word was made flesh! Today we celebrate the great Festival of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It could also be named the Feast of the Incarnation; for it’s exactly nine months to the day before Christ’s blessed Nativity.

In this Solemnity, we celebrate the very moment that Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in all humility, was conceived in the womb of a lowly virgin. And likewise, we bow down in awe before that sacred event, upon which is the very foundation of our holy Catholic Faith. For, in this unfathomable Mystery, the redemption of mankind was inaugurated.

We also celebrate the profound humility and unblemished beauty of the person chosen to be the receptacle of this miracle: the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is through this most holy Vessel of Honor that Our Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, and likewise, it is through her that He will reign in the world.

The Word was made flesh! Unto eternity, our human nature is united with the Godhead. There is nothing more profound. Yet, while truly a great Mystery of Faith, the Annunciation also clearly manifests to us a great lesson in humility. Our Lady is seen completely taken aback, humbled before the Archangel Gabriel; and our God, Who endowed us with freedom of choice, awaits the Holy Virgin’s consent. The Gospel reading of today is that from Saint Luke:

At that time: The Angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a Virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the Virgin’s name was Mary. And the Angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. Who, having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. And the Angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father: and he shall reign in the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. And Mary said to the Angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man? And the Angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God. And behold thy cousin Elizabeth she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: because no word shall be impossible with God. And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy word. – Luke 1:26:38

Ecce ancilla Domini, fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum – “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to Thy word.” At this moment of Blessed Mary’s sweet Fiat, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity condescended to take upon our human nature. God became man! Our Lady gave her perfect consent to our heavenly Father with her pure gift, bestowed from her Immaculate Heart. She gave without limit; wanting nothing other than to be in complete accord with the Father’s adorable Will. The Divine Will and human will perfectly embraced, and the Holy Ghost breathed life into her most spotless womb. The Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us.

Rev. Fr. Alban Butler writes in Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principle Saints, these very beautiful words to indicate the immense importance of the Blessed Virgin’s Fiat:

“The world, as heaven had decreed, was not to have a Savior till she had given her consent to the angel’s proposal; she gives it, and behold the power and efficacy of her submissive fiat! That moment, the mystery of love and mercy promised to mankind four thousand years before, foretold by so many Prophets, desired by so many Saints, is wrought on earth. That moment, the Word of God is forever united to humanity; the Soul of Jesus Christ, produced from nothing, begins to enjoy God, and to know all things past, present, and to come: that moment, God begins to have an adorer who is infinite, and the world a mediator who is omnipotent; and, to the working of this great Mystery, Mary alone is chosen to co operate by her free assent. The prophets represent the earth as moved out of its place, and the mountains as melting away before the very Countenance of God looking down upon the world. Now that He descends in person, who would not expect that the whole heavens should be moved?”

Et homo factus est 

Yes, the whole heavens were moved; and we Catholics are forever moved in honoring Christ’s Incarnation at every holy Mass, whenever we kneel in gratitude during the Credo, at the words: Et homo factus est – And was made man. 

It was not that long ago, in all of Christendom, that the Angelus Bells reminded us three times a day (morning, noon, and evening) of Saint Gabriel’s announcement, Blessed Mary’s Fiat, and that the Creator of heaven and earth became flesh and dwelt amongst us.

In his Instructions for today’s feast from The Liturgical Year, Dom Guéranger tells us how Saint Ireneus, the Second Century bishop and martyr, received this tradition from the very first disciples of the holy Apostles themselves – that Nazareth is truly the counterpart of Eden:

“In the garden of delights, there is a virgin and an angel. And at Nazareth, a virgin is also spoken to by an angel. But the angel of the earthly Paradise is a spirit of darkness and the angel of Nazareth is a spirit of light. Two conversations engaged with two opposite spirits, with two opposite results. Through the first woman, sin and death enter the world; through the second Woman, redemption and eternal life. Thus, the humble obedience of Mary repaired the prideful disobedience of Eve.

Further mystical significance is given to today’s date by Blessed Jacobus de Voragine, the holy Archbishop of Genoa, when he wrote in his famous book from 1275, The Golden Legend:

“This blessed Annunciation happened the twenty-fifth day of the month of March, on which day happened also, as well tofore as after, these things that hereafter be named. On that same day Adam, the first man, was created and fell into Original Sin by disobedience, and was put out of paradise terrestrial. After, the Archangel showed the conception of Our Lord to the glorious Virgin Mary.

Also that same day of the month Cain slew Abel, his brother. Also Melchisedech made offering to God of bread and wine in the presence of Abraham. Also on the same day Abraham offered Isaac his son. That same day Saint John the Baptist was beheaded, and Saint Peter was that day delivered out of prison, and Saint James the more, that day beheaded of Herod. And Our Lord Jesus Christi was on that day crucified, wherefore that is a day of great reverence.”

Holy images of the Annunciation often show Saint Gabriel the Archangel presenting the lily flower to the Blessed Virgin while she is kneeling in prayer. We read of this significance in Emma Jameson’s 1895 publication, Legends of the Madonna:

“It is usual to exhibit her as kneeling in prayer, or reading with a large book open on a desk before her. Saint Bernard says that she was studying the book of the prophet Isaiah, and as she recited the verse: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, she thought within her heart, in her great humility: ‘how blessed the woman of whom these words are written! Would that I might be but her handmaid to serve her, and allowed to kiss her feet!’ – when, in the same instant, the wondrous vision burst upon her, and the holy prophecy was realized in herself.”

Our Lady is so often represented by lilies. The Madonna Lily is also called the Annunciation Lily in honor of this feast, and is a perfect ornament for the day. In fact, the Venerable Bede often described its translucent white petals as symbolic of Mary’s holy purity and its golden anthers as a symbol of the glory of her soul when she was taken up to heaven in her glorious Assumption.  

Finally, there is the beautiful story about the Archangel’s salutation to Our Lady, taken once again from the aforementioned, The Golden Legend:

“Of the salutation that the Archangel brought to the glorious Virgin, we read an example of a noble knight which for to amend his life gave and rendered himself into an abbey of Citeaux, and, forasmuch as he was no clerk, there was assigned to him a master for to teach him, and to be with the brethren clerks, but he could nothing learn in long time that was there save these two words: Ave Maria, which words he had so sore imprinted in his heart that always he had them in his mouth wheresoever he was.

At last he died and was buried in the churchyard of the brethren. It happened after, that upon the burials grew a right fair fleur-de-lis, and in every flower was written in letters of gold: Ave Maria, of which miracle all the brethren were amarvelled, and they did open the sepulcher, and found that the root of this fleur-de-lis came out of the mouth of the said knight, and anon they understood that Our Lord would have him honored for the great devotion that he had to say these words: Ave Maria!”

Today is the 32nd Anniversary of the Archbishop’s holy passing; when His Grace gave back to God his heroic and pure soul. According to his request, the famous words of Saint Paul were engraved upon his tombstone: Tradidi quod et accepi – “I handed on what I received.”  We pray that our beloved Founder intercede for his Priestly Fraternity and inspire more of his true sons to stand firm and resist the compromised, new direction of the Conciliar-SSPX.