To the beloved faithful of the Old Roman Apostolate

Carissimi

As we cross the threshold into Passiontide, the Church, in her maternal wisdom, begins to draw the veil over the face of her suffering Spouse. With the gravity of one who knows the hour is near, she prepares us not merely to recall the Passion of the Lord, but to enter it, to dwell within its mystery, to participate anew in the great drama of redemption. The sacred liturgy, especially in its traditional Roman form, offers not abstract theology but enfleshed truth — truth that speaks in signs and silences, gestures and omissions, in what is said and in what is no longer said.

Among these signs, subtle yet profound, is the shifting place of Psalm 42, Judica me, Deus, a psalm that forms the threshold prayer of the priest in the Mass throughout the year, but which is now deliberately silenced — and then made to reappear, not as the priest’s own private preparation, but as the public proclamation of Christ’s own entry into His Passion. I offer the following meditation to illuminate this sacred gesture and to draw out the spiritual significance it holds for our own participation in the liturgy of these most holy days. May it assist both clergy and faithful to enter more deeply into the mind of the Church, and through her, into the Sacred Heart of the Redeemer.

In the traditional Roman Rite, Passion Sunday inaugurates a profound shift in the spiritual landscape of Lent — a shift not merely seasonal or devotional, but sacrificial and sacerdotal. With the veiling of sacred images, the Church signals her entry into the hidden mystery of the Passion: the Bridegroom begins to withdraw from view, even as He prepares to ascend the mount of offering. This moment is marked with quiet solemnity by a liturgical detail easily overlooked, yet theologically luminous: the relocation of Psalm 42, Judica me, Deus.

Until Passion Sunday, this psalm — “Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy” — forms the heart of the priest’s private preparation at the foot of the altar, as part of the Preparatio ad Missam. From Septuagesima through the Fifth Sunday of Lent, it remains in place. Only on Passion Sunday is it conspicuously omitted — not as a Lenten gesture of penance, but as a Passiontide gesture of mystery. From this Sunday forward, the Judica me disappears from the priest’s prayers and is instead elevated to the public proclamation of the Introit of the Mass¹.

This is no mere rubrical curiosity, but a liturgical transfiguration. The voice of the individual priest is quieted, so that the voice of the Eternal High Priest might resound. As the Church sings Judica me at the beginning of the Holy Sacrifice, it is no longer the voice of the minister preparing for Mass; it is the voice of Christ Himself, standing at the threshold of His Passion. “Why hast Thou cast Me off? And why do I go sorrowful, whilst the enemy afflicteth Me?” Here is Gethsemane, prefigured; here is the Cross, foreshadowed. “I will go to the altar of God”: here is the obedience of the Son unto death².

The traditional liturgy is here doing something profoundly theological: it marks not merely the continuation of Lent, but a new and deeper phase — Passiontide — in which the High Priest begins His liturgical entry into the Holy of Holies. This is emphasized by the Epistle of the day, taken from Hebrews: “Christ being come, an High Priest of the good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle… entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption”³. The High Priest is Christ, and the altar is no longer merely the table of offering, but the wood of the Cross. The Mass of Passion Sunday stands at the threshold of this sacrificial ascent.

The relocation of the Judica me from the priest’s lips to the voice of the Church is the liturgical moment in which Christ takes full possession of the rite. The veiled crosses, the hushed tones, the intensification of the readings — all signify that the divine action is now taking centre stage. The priest no longer prays in anticipation of Christ’s action; now, Christ Himself prays in and through the liturgy. Ipse Christus agere incipit — Christ Himself begins to act.

Dom Guéranger notes that Passiontide marks “the solemn opening of the mysteries of the Passion,” in which the liturgy now becomes a direct participation in the redemptive work of the Savior⁴. The silence of the psalm at the foot of the altar becomes its proclamation at the head of the Church: the Lamb is stepping forward, and He does not go unwillingly. “I will go to the altar of God” — not the golden altar of the Temple, but the rough wood of Golgotha.

That the modern rites have suppressed this liturgical choreography altogether — omitting Psalm 42 from the New Mass entirely — is emblematic of a broader loss. The faithful are no longer mystagogically led into the mystery; they are instead given plain speech and procedural efficiency. But the traditional Roman Rite, in its very structure, teaches us how to perceive the hidden Christ — veiled, suffering, yet sovereign.

The Judica me is no longer the priest’s threshold prayer, because the liturgy itself has now become the threshold of the Passion. The Eternal High Priest goes to the altar, and we go with Him.

Let us, then, beloved in Christ, heed the wisdom of the Church, who veils her sanctuaries not out of despair, but out of reverence; who silences certain prayers not to impoverish the liturgy, but to make room for the voice of the High Priest Himself. In a time when so much of the sacred has been obscured not by veils but by neglect, not by reverent silence but by liturgical reductionism, we must redouble our fidelity to the tradition that nourished the saints and formed the martyrs. The sacred liturgy in its ancient form is not a relic of the past, but the living voice of Christ, speaking now as ever, in signs that are clear to the eyes of faith.

As we accompany our Lord toward His altar — which is His Cross, and through it, the heavenly sanctuary — may we learn to make our own the words of the Psalm: Introibo ad altare Dei, ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam. And may we never forget that in the Mass, above all in this solemn season, Christ Himself is the One who ascends — and we, if we are united to Him, ascend with Him, through suffering, into glory.

May the sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, who stood at the foot of the true altar, obtain for us the grace to remain faithful unto the end.

In Christo sacerdote et hostia,

I.X.

Brichtelmestunensis
Dominica de Passione MMXXV A.D.

Oremus

1. Missale Romanum (1962), Ordo Missae and Dominica de Passione, Introitus. See also Rubricae Generales, Tit. IV, §1: “A Dominica Passionis usque ad Sabbatum Sanctum inclusive, in principio Missae non dicitur Psalmus Judica me Deus.” ↩︎
2. Psalm 42:4: Et introibo ad altare Dei: ad Deum qui lætificat juventutem meam. In patristic tradition, this verse is interpreted Christologically, especially by Cassiodorus and the Fathers of Gaul. ↩︎
3. Hebrews 9:11–12, Epistle of Passion Sunday in the traditional Roman Missal. Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q. 22, a. 2: “Christus fuit sacerdos secundum quod humanam naturam assumpsit.” ↩︎
4. Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Vol. 6: Passiontide and Holy Week (tr. Dom Laurence Shepherd), p. 87: “The holy Church begins, today, a new period, in her liturgical year. It is called Passiontide. This morning, the badge of mourning appeared on all the sacred images in her temples.” ↩︎

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