VEILING OF IMAGES AND CRUCIFIXES IN LENT

VEILING THE CRUCIFIXES AND STATUES WITH PURPLE DURING PASSIONTIDE 

 A. SIGNIFICANCE OF VEILING CRUCIFIXES AND STATUES DURING PASSIONTIDE 

The last two weeks in the season of Lent are called Passiontide which begins on the Fifth Sunday of Lent. This is when the Church shifts her focus from Christ in the desert (the Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent) to Christ during His Passion. 

So, the Fifth Sunday of Lent is the beginning of the two weeks of Passiontide in the Catholic Church. The Fifth week of Lent is known as the Passion Week and the Sixth Week of Lent which begins with the celebration of Palm Sunday is known as HOLY WEEK. Going through the readings of the Passion Week (that is, FIFTH WEEK), you will notice the INCREASING HATRED the Jews had for Christ. They accused him of being a blasphemer, sorcerer, being possessed by an evil spirit and so on. 

 The old Gospel reading for Passion Sunday (fifth Sunday of Lent) ends with these words: They took up stones therefore to cast at him. But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.-John 8:59. (This Gospel will be read on Thursday of Week 5 of Lent). According to Saint Augustine, at this moment when Jesus hid himself, Christ in fact became invisible by virtue of His divine nature. 

Saint Augustine writes: He hides not Himself in a corner of the temple, as if afraid, or running into a cottage, or turning aside behind a wall or column: but by His Divine Power making Himself invisible, he passed through their midst. To help signify this mystery, Catholic statues and images are veiled with purple cloth on the evening before Passion Sunday (Fifth Sunday of Lent). Jesus hides Himself. The processional crucifix and other small crucifixes are unveiled for Veneration (Kissing of the crucifix) on GOOD FRIDAY. 

The other images and statues are unveiled on Holy Saturday. This is the moment at which the fast of Lent ends and the glory of Easter begins. This unveiling reveals that Christ has revealed himself as risen and victorious. 

 Thus, the veiling of the crucifixes and statues symbolizes the fact that the Divinity of Christ was hidden at the time of His Passion and death, the very essence of Passiontide. 

 Too, the veils serve as a reminder to get ready! How? The veiled images build within us a longing for Easter Sunday. Through this absence of images, our senses are heightened and we become more aware of what is missing. 

 Also, we use veils to alert us of the special time that we are in. When we walk into church and notice everything is covered, we immediately know that something is different. These last two weeks of Lent are meant to be a time of immediate preparation for the Sacred Triduum and these veils are a forceful reminder to get ready. 

 Again, when images are unveiled before the Easter Vigil, we are reminded that we, in a sense, live in a veiled world. It is through our own death that we are able to see our true home, and the veil is lifted. Christ lifts the veil through His Resurrection. Jesus told her, I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. John 11:25-26 

 More so, the veils focus our attention on the words being said at Mass. When we listen to the Passion narrative, our senses are allowed to focus on the striking words from the Gospel and truly enter into the scene.

 Prior to Vatican II the editors of the Schott Missal saw the veiling of crosses and so on as intended to remind us of the humiliation of the Redeemer and thus to imprint the image of the crucified Christ more deeply on our hearts. 

 The unveiling before the Easter Vigil is a great reminder of our own life on earth. We live in a veiled world, in exile from our true home. It is only through salvation that the veil is lifted and we are finally able to see the beauty of everything in our lives. 

 NOTE: Families are also encouraged to imitate this practice and veil prominent religious images in their homes. It is also a beautiful tradition to pass down to our children, who will be intrigued by it and it will make this time of year truly special for them. We go through great lengths to decorate our homes for Easter, so why not prepare for the great feast by using veils?

 B. CHURCH DOCUMENTS ON THE VEILING OF CRUCIFIXES AND STATUES DURING PASSIONTIDE In the Roman Missal we find this information: 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 Lords Passion on Good Friday, but images remain covered until the beginning of the Easter Vigil. This is adopted by every diocese in all parts of the world. 

 C. WHEN IS IT THE RIGHT TIME TO VEIL IMAGES AND CRUCIFIXES The duration of such veiling varies from place to place. The custom in many places is to veil from before first vespers or the vigil Mass of the Fifth Sunday of Lent while others limit this veiling from after the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday. There was a contribution from a Catholic in Virginia thus: Our parish covered all images, including the crucifix on the altar, on Ash Wednesday. Apparently they will be unveiled on Saturday, March 26, 2005, at the Easter Vigil. Also, all of the holy water was removed from our parish as of Ash Wednesday. 

 D. OTHER THINGS OU NED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VEILING OF IMAGES AND CRUCIFIXES In some places images and statues are actually removed from the church and not simply veiled, especially after Holy Thursday. Crosses are unveiled after the Good Friday ceremonies. All other images are unveiled shortly before the Mass of the Easter Vigil. Neither the Stations of the Cross nor stained glass windows are ever veiled. The bishops' conference may decide if the veiling during this period should be obligatory within its territory. The veils are usually made of lightweight purple cloth without any decoration. The custom of veiling the images during the last two weeks of Lent hails from the former liturgical calendar in which the Passion was read on the Fifth Sunday of Lent (hence called Passion Sunday) as well as on Palm Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week, and Good Friday. For this reason the period following the Fifth Sunday of Lent was called Passiontide. A remnant of this custom is the obligatory use of the first Preface of the Lord's Passion during the Fifth Week of Lent. 

 E. THE HISTORICAL ORIGIN OF VEILING OF CRUCIFIXES AND IMAGES DURING PASSIONTIDE 

The historical origin of this practice probably derives from a custom, noted in Germany from the ninth century, of extending a large cloth before the altar from the beginning of Lent. 

This cloth, called the Hungertuch (hunger cloth), hid the altar entirely from the faithful during Lent and was not removed until during the reading of the Passion on Holy Wednesday at the words the veil of the temple was rent in two. Some authors say there was a practical reason for this practice insofar as the often-illiterate faithful needed a way to know it was Lent. Others, however, maintain that it was a remnant of the ancient practice of public penance in which the penitents were ritually expelled from the church at the beginning of Lent. 

 After the ritual of public penance was no longer in use, but the entire congregation symbolically entered the order of penitents by receiving ashes on Ash Wednesday, it was no longer possible to expel them from the church. Rather, the altar or Holy of Holies was shielded from view until they were reconciled to God at Easter. 

 For analogous motives, later on in the Middle Ages, the images of crosses and saints were also covered from the start of Lent. The rule of limiting this veiling to Passiontide came later and does not appear until the publication of the Bishops' Ceremonial of the 17th century. After the Second Vatican Council there were moves to abolish all veiling of images, but the practice survived, although in a mitigated form. © Rev FR Utazi Prince Marie Benignus Zereuwa Updated March 16, 2024