Passiontide Begins – And We Have No Mass

KEEP THE LORD’S DAY HOLY

Today we enter into Passiontide. The vast majority of us will not be allowed to assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass today. As we enter the most solemn time of the liturgical year, when we commemorate Christ’s Passion, we are prohibited from being present at the real and mystical presentation of His Passion. Truly, this is a very sad day – there are no words capable of expressing our sorrow. Thus, in this reflection, I will simply direct you to words which Holy Mother Church provides in the Divine Office for Passion Sunday.

My family and I will be praying through all the prayers of the Mass together. As head of the family, I will provide them with a reflection upon the Sunday’s lessons. (If you do not have a Missal, I would encourage you to search on the internet “TLM Mass Propers for Passion Sunday,” likewise you can search the “TLM Ordinary Prayers” which are those prayers which never change being said at every Holy Mass.) Later in the day, in addition to our regular prayers which include the family Rosary,  we plan to listen to sermons, pray the Stations of the Cross, and spend fifteen minutes in meditation upon the Four Last Things.

Three prayers you can offer to make a Spiritual Communion.
Linked here is more information on Spiritual Communion.
HERE are other ideas for how to keep Sunday holy when Mass is not available.
HERE are also some suggestions for implementing a more spiritually fruitful Passiontide.

I find it very helpful to include the Divine Office in my daily prayer routine. Like the Holy Mass and the Sacraments, these liturgical prayers form part of the Church’s “public prayer” or “official worship” when offered by priests and religious. Although laity are not obligated to pray the Divine Office as priests and religious are, we are still encouraged to do so, and these prayers can, of course, bear much good spiritual fruit. On a Sunday when you are forbidden from being at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Divine Office can help alleviate that spiritual vacuum.

The following text is all taken from today’s Divine Office, according to the rubrics from 1955, which you can find online here. (They even provide an app “BreviarumMeum” which you can download to your phone.) Any emphasis added or comments in [dark blue] are my own.

OFFICE OF MATINS

From the Sermons of Pope St. Leo the Great:

Dearly beloved brethren, we know that of all the solemn Feasts which are kept by Christians the Passover is the chief [The Passion of Christ, the Holy Triduum and Easter]. The ordinances of the whole rest of the year are ordered to the end of preparing us to come to this one in worthy and meet manner. But these days, which now are, are they which ought most especially to stir up a godly mind in us, seeing that they are they which are nearest to that most glorious mystery of God’s mercy [The Passion of Christ, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass].

In these days the holy Apostles, taught by the Holy Ghost, ordered the chiefest store of Fasting [yet today, many are calling for an end to the Lenten Fast or dispensing from it], that we, sharing His Cross with Christ, might, albeit we are what we are, in Him, do some of the same things which He did for our sakes, and so realize the saying of the Apostle: “If we suffer with Him, we shall be also glorified together” (Rom 8:17). He that is partaker of the sufferings (2 Cor 1:7) of the Lord hath a sure and certain hope of that blessedness which He hath promised unto us.

Dearly beloved brethren, there is no man to whom the state of the age in which he liveth denieth a share in this glory of partaking, first the sufferings, and then the triumph and joy, of Christ. It is not as though this time of peace were barren in occasions of valor. The Apostle giveth us this warning All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution (2 Tim 3:12). And therefore, as long as godliness is watchful, persecution will never be asleep. The Lord Himself saith in one of His own exhortations He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me (Mt 10:38). [The Holy Mass is the Sacrifice of Calvary, is the Cross. Do we believe this? Do we act in accordance with this infallible truth?]

And we must not doubt that these words of Christ apply not only to His immediate disciples, to whom He spoke them, but belong to all the faithful and to the whole Church, who, whosoever be the believers of whom she is for the time composed on earth, heareth in these words the way to be saved which her Lord hath appointed for them.

As then, it is the duty of the whole body of the Church to live godly, so is it her right at all times to be a-bearing of her Master’s Cross, and that not only in her general body, but individually in the person of each one of her members, who differ every one from another in the way in which they have to carry it, and the shape in which it is laid upon them. [Our assistance at Holy Mass is not only our fitting worship of God, but the principal means by which we carry the Cross and participate in Our Lord’s own Passion and Death.] 

The one common name for all their carrying of the Cross is persecution, but the manner of his wrestling is special to each; and there is often more danger in the ambush than in the pitched field of battle. Blessed Job, who had tried both the goods and the ills of this world, said: Is not the life of man upon earth a warfare? (7:1)

The attack upon the faithful soul arrayeth itself not alone in bodily torture and punishment; yea, when the limbs are sound enough, fearful is the ravage that threateneth us when the lusts of the flesh unman us. But when the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh (Gal 4:7) the reasonable mind findeth her reinforcement in the helpful Cross of Christ, and though she be lured by foul cravings, yet refuseth to give her consent, for God maketh her pure thoughts to tremble for fear of Him (Ps 118:210). 

OFFICE OF PRIME

The Roman Martyrology commemorates, among others, the Blessed Tribune Quirinus. The Roman emperor Hadrian imprisoned the Pope under Quirinus’ charge. Yet the Tribune (a high ranking Roman official) was converted; he and his family were baptized by the Pope. The Tribune chose to disobey his superior and the secular law, under which he had always been formed. We can likewise imagine the Holy Father then offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass privately for St. Quirinus and his family. The emperor responded by torturing Quirinus. Strengthened by the Holy Ghost, the holy waters of Baptism, and the Bread of Angels, Jesus Christ Himself in the Holy Eucharist, Quirinus would not deny God or his Catholic Faith. The emperor had him killed. Pope Alexander I likewise suffered martyrdom. For centuries now, Holy Mother Church has honored Quirinus as a saint with heroic virtue worthy of our imitation. We read of such inspiring examples every day in the Martyrology. The Office of Prime narrates this today:

At Rome, upon the Appian Way, the Blessed Tribune Quirinus [in the year 130]. Holy Pope Alexander was committed to ward with him, and by the same he and all his house were baptized. Under the Emperor Hadrian he was brought before the Judge Aurelian, and as he remained steadfast in the faith, his tongue was cut out, he was racked, and his hands and feet cut off, and at last his contending was finished by the sword.

OFFICE OF LAUDS

These are various antiphons, or responses, taken from Passion Sunday’s Lauds:

O Lord, behold my affliction; for the enemy hath magnified himself.
[My greatest affliction is my inability to be present with Thee at the Holy Sacrifice.]

I called upon the Lord in my distress; and He answered me, and set me at large.

O Lord, Thou has pleaded the cause of my soul;
Thou hast redeemed my life, O Lord my God.

O My people, what have I done unto thee? or where have I wearied thee? testify against Me.
[Do not we, baptized members of the Church, consider ourselves ‘His People?’]

Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have dug a pit for my soul.
[A spiritual pit which lacks the availability of Holy Mass, Confession, Last Rites, holy water, processions, public prayer, and so much more…]

Deliver me from my enemies, O my God.
And defend me from them that rise up against me.

Jesus said unto the multitudes of the Jews and unto the Chief Priests: He that is of God heareth God’s words; ye, therefore, hear them not, because ye are not of God.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

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