In Conspectu Dei: Reflections on the Holy Week Liturgy
“In the sight of God” — emphasizing worship as divine encounter.
By ✠Jerome OSJV, Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate

INTRODUCTION

The sacred liturgy is the heart of the Church’s life and the source of all true sanctity. Nowhere is this more evident than in the solemn rites of Holy Week, when the Church accompanies her Divine Spouse through the mysteries of His Passion, Death, and Resurrection. These days are not merely commemorative; they are sacramental, mystical, and transformative.

The following reflections are offered to assist the faithful in entering more deeply into the traditional liturgy—not only in form, but in spirit. They are not academic commentaries, nor practical guides alone, but meditations intended to stir the soul to a fuller participation: not merely by following with the eyes, but by uniting the heart and will to Christ’s saving work.

May these words serve as a small help in approaching the sacred mysteries with greater reverence, understanding, and devotion—so that each soul may be more perfectly conformed to the Crucified and Risen Lord, through the timeless worship of His holy Church.

Liturgical Participation: Communion, Not Imitation

In the sacred liturgy, the faithful are not mere spectators. They are not gathered as a public audience for religious instruction or ceremony. Rather, they are members of the Mystical Body of Christ, mystically united to the action of their Head, the Eternal High Priest, who in every liturgical act offers anew His sacrifice to the Father through sacramental signs.

True participation in the liturgy is not measured by activity or outward visibility. The Church has never taught that sacred worship depends upon the multiplication of gestures or spoken responses by the laity. Rather, participation is principally interior—a movement of faith and love by which the soul unites itself to the Sacrifice of the Altar. As Pope Pius X taught, the faithful participate in the liturgy most fruitfully when they “pray the Mass,” joining their hearts to the sacred action wrought by the priest in persona Christi.

This is not imitation of Christ in a moral sense, but mystical communion with His self-oblation. It is a spiritual act of union with His suffering, His obedience, and His love. The more the faithful assist with reverence and interior devotion, the more they are conformed to Him who offered Himself “a victim, a sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness”¹.

To assist at the sacred rites during Holy Week is, therefore, to renew our consent to die with Christ—dying to the world, to the flesh, and to our own will—that we may also rise with Him in glory. The external rites are sublime and solemn, but their value is fully realized only when they are interiorly embraced by souls thirsting for union with the Crucified.

Footnotes
¹ Ephesians 5:2; cf. Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei §§20–21; Roman Catechism, Part II, on the Sacrifice of the Mass.

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Sharing in the Paschal Mystery

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and all the rites surrounding it, are not commemorations in the modern, historical sense. They are the perpetuation of the redemptive act of Christ under sacramental veils. The liturgy of the Church does not look back wistfully to Calvary—it makes present the one Sacrifice of the Cross, re-presented in an unbloody manner upon the altar.

This is the sacred mystery at the heart of Holy Week: that what was accomplished once in time is now dispensed through the Church’s liturgy, by the power of Christ and the operation of the Holy Ghost. The ceremonies of this most solemn week are not sentimental reenactments, but sacred channels of divine grace, given to unite the faithful to the sufferings and triumph of the Redeemer.

The liturgy, being sacramental, effects what it signifies. As St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, the sacraments operate ex opere operato, by the very fact of their performance, because it is Christ who acts in them. Yet this grace bears fruit in proportion to the disposition of the soul. The exterior rite is valid and efficacious; but its spiritual harvest is abundant only where there is humility, contrition, and a burning desire to be united to Christ Crucified².

Thus, the liturgical action is not a stage upon which we express ourselves, but the divine means by which Christ expresses His love—and draws us to Himself. We love because He first loved us. We offer because He first offered Himself. This is not a dialogue of equals, but a condescension of mercy to which we respond in adoration and sacrifice.

Footnotes
² cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q.83, a.1; Council of Trent, Session XXII, ch.2; Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei §59.

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The Interior Fruitfulness of the Sacred Liturgy

The sacred liturgy is not a vehicle for personal creativity or community self-expression. It is a work of God, a divine action, instituted by Christ and entrusted to His Church. It sanctifies not by emotion or novelty, but by the objective power of grace conferred through the rites as the Church has received them.

The Church has always taught that true and fruitful participation in the liturgy is interior—silent, recollected, devout. While exterior acts have their place, they are ordered to a deeper reality: the union of the soul with Christ’s offering. As Pope Pius XII insisted, “the chief element of divine worship must be interior worship”³.

This is why silence, reverence, and sacred continuity are not aesthetic preferences, but theological necessities. The liturgy is the summit of the Church’s prayer because it is where Christ offers Himself anew through the ministry of His priests. The faithful participate most deeply when they unite their own sacrifices—offered upon the altar of the heart—with that perfect Victim who is daily immolated for the salvation of souls.

The rites of Holy Week thus call each Christian to interior renewal. As the Church passes through the mysteries of the Passion, she calls her children to be conformed to Christ in His humility and His Cross. The sacred signs form us in the likeness of the Son—not through innovation or performance, but through contemplation, self-denial, and loving participation in His redemptive work.

Footnotes
³ Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei §24; cf. Council of Trent, Session XXII, ch.1; St. John Eudes, The Priest: His Dignity and Obligations.

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Christ the Liturgical Centre: The Priest Who Offers, the Lamb Who Is Offered

In every act of sacred worship, it is Christ who is at work. He is the true celebrant of every Mass, the High Priest of the new and eternal covenant. The visible priest acts only in His Person; the sacred ministers are instruments through which the Eternal Priest continues His offering to the Father⁴.

Christ is also the Victim. What He offered once on Calvary is made present again on the altar—mystically, yet really. The liturgy is thus the union of Priest and Victim, the perpetual presentation of the same Sacrifice in an unbloody manner. This is why the Church teaches that the Mass is one and the same sacrifice as that of the Cross⁵.

The faithful, therefore, do not gather around the altar merely to be instructed or encouraged. They approach it in reverence to witness and participate—according to their state—in the act by which the world is redeemed. In this sacred action, Christ glorifies the Father and sanctifies His Church. The altar is Calvary; the sanctuary is a foretaste of heaven.

All things in the liturgy exist to direct our attention to this mystery. The silence, the orientation, the Latin tongue, the sacred vestments—all elevate the mind and heart to Christ. When rightly understood, they allow the faithful to be drawn into that divine action which surpasses all human activity: the self-offering of the Son to the Father, in which we are invited to share.

Footnotes
⁴ cf. Council of Trent, Session XXII, ch.2; Pope Pius XI, Ad Catholici Sacerdotii, §12.
⁵ Roman Catechism, Part II, ch.4; Mediator Dei §68.

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The Liturgy as a Foretaste of Glory

The sacred liturgy not only looks back to the Passion; it looks forward to eternity. It is the veil through which we glimpse the heavenly court. The altar is not only the place of sacrifice—it is the threshold of heaven. Every sacred liturgy is a participation in the celestial liturgy, where the angels cry Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus before the throne of God⁶.

This is the eschatological character of the liturgy so clearly understood by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. In it, time meets eternity; earth touches heaven. The sacred rites are patterned upon the eternal worship of the Lamb, and through them, the Church on earth is united with the Church Triumphant. This is why the saints longed for the altar, and why the faithful of old approached it in awe and trembling.

Holy Week reveals this with especial clarity. The sufferings of Christ lead not to annihilation, but to glory. The tomb gives way to the throne. In the sacred liturgy, the faithful do not only mourn their sins; they anticipate their glorification. They learn to desire heaven because they have tasted something of its majesty.

To worship according to the mind of the Church is therefore to be prepared for eternity. The beauty and solemnity of the ancient rites are not ornaments, but reflections of divine order. They form the soul for the heavenly liturgy by immersing it in reverence, humility, and sacrificial love.

Footnotes
⁶ cf. Revelation 4:8; Mediator Dei §§3–4; Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Vol. 6 (Passiontide).

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The Church Is Made in Worship

The Church, in her visible structure, in her teaching and discipline, in her sacraments and hierarchy, exists for one end: the glory of God and the sanctification of souls. And nowhere is this end more perfectly realized than in the sacred liturgy. It is here that the Church is most truly herself: the Bride united to her Bridegroom, the Body animated by its Head⁷.

In the act of worship, the Church is not only expressing devotion—she is being formed. The faithful are configured to Christ; the priest is conformed to the Eternal High Priest; the Church herself is renewed in her sacred identity. From the altar flows the grace that builds up her unity, strengthens her mission, and sanctifies her members.

This is why tradition insists that the liturgy is received, not invented. It is a divine gift, not a human project. The rites handed down across centuries are not museum pieces but living expressions of the Church’s soul. To preserve them faithfully is not an act of nostalgia—it is an act of fidelity to Christ and the order He has established.

The Church is most herself when she is silent before the mystery, obedient to tradition, and recollected in the presence of God. This is her truest apostolate. From worship rightly offered, all true renewal flows.

Footnotes
⁷ cf. Mystici Corporis Christi, §§60–65; Mediator Dei §24; Roman Catechism, Part II, ch.5.

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Conclusion: To Worship in Spirit and in Truth

The sacred liturgy of Holy Week leads the Church into the heart of the Christian mystery: the suffering, death, and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. These rites, solemn and immemorial, do not merely instruct the mind or stir the emotions—they sanctify the soul and glorify God. They are the appointed means by which Christ’s redemptive work is made present to His Church, and through which the faithful are invited to unite themselves to the saving Victim offered upon the altar.

To participate rightly in this liturgy is to enter into a divine mystery with reverence, humility, and love. It is to acknowledge that we are not the authors of our worship, but its recipients and servants. The priest ascends the altar as Christ, and we ascend with him in spirit, offering ourselves in union with the great oblation. We bring our crosses, our sins, our hopes, and our needs—not as isolated individuals, but as members of the Mystical Body.

This participation is not measured by noise or motion, but by interior surrender. As the Church has always taught, the most fruitful worship is that which conforms the soul to Christ, drawing it into His obedience, His humility, and His self-offering. Whether with missal in hand, Rosary in heart, or gaze fixed silently upon the altar, what matters most is that the soul be truly present—adoring, uniting, and offering itself in faith.

Holy Week is not merely the highest week of the liturgical year; it is the school of the Cross, the furnace of charity, the path to glory. If we enter it with docility, it will not leave us unchanged. For to worship in spirit and in truth is to be made like unto the One we worship: the Lamb who was slain and who now reigns.

Let us then approach these sacred days as pilgrims at the threshold of eternity, prepared to die with Christ, that we may also rise with Him to newness of life.

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Lent Conferences 2025

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