The fifth Sunday in Lent marks the beginning of Passiontide. It is customary in churches to veil all statues and images until the celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection. In the Traditional Roman Rite, this is also marked by the omission of the doxology in both the Mass and the Divine Office.
The suspension of the public celebration of Mass and Sacraments, and the shuttering of our churches is like a huge veil covering the Church as a whole. The first words of the Lamentations of Jeremiah come to mind: How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the cities has become a vassal (1:1). These sacred texts, five distinct poems, four of which are written in acrostics, are used extensively in the liturgy of Holy Week. In the Jewish liturgy, the book is traditionally recited on the fast day of Tisha B’Av (Ninth of Av), mourning the destruction of both the First and Second Temple. They give voice to our anguish as we experience the reduction and desertification of the Church. It would seem that the Church is experiencing her own passion.
Composers have created beautiful music for the sacred texts of the Lamentations that comprise much of the Divine Office of the last three days of Holy Week; namely, Matins and Lauds, knows as Tenebrae. In view of the collective trial the Church is experiencing these sacred texts are more than appropriate also for our own private prayer. The pandemic that has gripped the world, whatever our thoughts on its severity and impact, continues to have unprecedented deleterious effects on the life of the Church. Our times are apocalyptic and we must fortify ourselves through prayer and penance. The liturgy of this Sunday is nevertheless an invitation to hope in the ultimate victory of Christ Our Lord and King, the conqueror of sin and death. ‘Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one: I died and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades’ (Rev. 1:17-18).