The Roman Liturgy – The Composure and Agony of Passiontide

“A high mountain peak whose summit is bathed in sunlight, while its lower reaches are in the grips of a terrible storm.”

Mar 20, 2024

In the previous part, we considered how Christ’s silence in his passion manifests a composure and dignity under even the most unimaginable treatment. We considered how this silence is a veil, like those which cover the statues in Passiontide, hiding from us the thoughts and feelings which Christ experienced in his passion.

We noted that the Gospels do not just tell the story of a man who lived and died in history – but rather present to us a living God-Man, whom we must follow and imitate, and in whom we must live and abide. The events of the passion are not just in the past, but are living mysteries from which grace continues to flow.

But the Gospels are not our only source of knowledge about the passion. Through the use of the psalms in the liturgy, the Roman Church lifts part of the veil of Christ’s silence, and teaches us parts of what transpired within our Saviour’s soul, and thus draws us to him through faith and love.

To see how, let’s consider the place of the psalms in the life of the Church and her liturgy.

The Roman Liturgy – An ongoing series of standalone pieces about the Roman liturgy, hope and the crisis in the Church

Septuagesima I: The Beginning of the Liturgical Year?
Septuagesima II: The Babylonian Captivity and the Crisis in the Church
Lent I: The Protection of God
Lent II: “What Think You of Christ?”
Lent III: Laetare Sunday and the Church
Passiontide I: The Silence of Passiontide
Passiontide II: The Composure and Agony of Passiontide
Holy Week: Maundy Thursday and the Stripping of the Church
Christ the King: “Are you a King, then?” – Christendom and the Social Kingship of Christ
Advent I: The Advent Liturgy and the Apocalypse
Advent II: The Close Presence of Christ in Advent
Advent III: Advent and the Preparation for Victory
Christmas and Christ’s Triumph over Darkness
Epiphany as the Manifestation of Christ’s Kingship
Epiphanytide: Ordinary Time or our Entrance into Eternity?

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The Psalms

In the traditional Roman liturgy, the majority of the variable parts chanted by the choir (the “proper texts” or “propers”) are taken from the psalms. The psalms do not appear just once between the readings, as in the Novus Ordo: they dominate the Mass from the start to the finish.

They are a crucial means by which the Church teaches us how to view the sacred mysteries of our religion and the person of Christ himself.

Several times in the Gospels, Christ himself states that the Old Testament points to him. After his resurrection, he states that the psalms (as well as the Law and the Prophets) spoke of him. Throughout the New Testament, the sacred writers explain themselves and Christ’s mysteries with the language of the psalms.

It follows from this – and it is a commonplace of scriptural commentary – that many parts of the psalms are written as if spoken by Christ himself. Many of these texts are prophecies of his life.

We might even say that the Psalter gives us a glimpse into the thoughts and feelings of the Sacred Heart itself.

In passing, this shows why it is such great loss for the propers to be replaced with arbitrarily-chosen hymns, or even just omitted or ignored.

But to return to the point: what is the Church teaching us in the propers of the two Sundays in Passiontide, Passion Sunday and Palm Sunday?

The liturgy of Passion Sunday

Passion Sunday presents us with a Christ who is completely composed in the face of suffering. In fact, there is almost no mention of his suffering in the propers at all.

This is the Christ who does not have his life taken from him: rather, he lays it down and he takes it up again.

This is also the Christ whom St Luke tells us “steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem” – recalling Isaias’ prophecy, that the Messias would “set [his] face as a most hard rock” in his sufferings (Luke 9:51, Isa. 50:7). Fr Johannes Pinsk writes:

“The Christ presented to us on Passion Sunday is a worthy peer of the Christ presented on past Sundays of Quadragesima.
“Again and again, in the midst of all his anguish and indigence, in the teeth of all challenges and attacks, there shines forth the interior grandeur, nobility and glory of the Lord.
“So it was that the catechumens and the penitents saw him; so, too, should the whole community of Christians see him today, as they prepare to commemorate and celebrate his Passion.”[1] (Line breaks added throughout)

But what of the propers themselves? In the introit, we hear the following from Psalm 42:

Introit: Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy: deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man: For thou art God my strength.
V. Send forth thy light and thy truth: they have conducted me, and brought me unto thy holy hill, and into thy tabernacles.

This is the psalm prayed by the priest at the foot of the altar at each Mass: it is the preparation for going “in to the altar of God” to offer the Holy Sacrifice itself.

By appearing at the start of Passiontide, it presents Christ as completely composed and prepared for the holy Sacrifice on Golgotha.

The intervening verse gives voice to sorrow – “Why hast thou cast me off? and why do I go sorrowful whilst the enemy afflicteth me?” – and its omission in the Introit emphasises this sense of composure even more.

The epistle takes up this language of entering in and going to the altar of sacrifice, again presenting Christ’s self-sacrifice as a considered act, rather than a passive suffering:

Christ, being come an high Priest […] neither by the blood of goats or of calves, but by his own blood, entered once into the Holies, having obtained eternal redemption. (Heb. 9.12)

The gradual is a call for help – but one of assured confidence, returning to the confidence in the vindication of God:

Gradual: Deliver me from my enemies: Teach me to do thy will.
V. O God, who avengest me, and subduest the people under me, my deliverer from my enraged enemies.
V. And thou wilt lift me up above them that rise up against me: from the unjust man thou wilt deliver me. (Ps. 142, Ps 17)

The tract talks more directly of Our Lord’s mistreatment – but even there, the tone is very “matter-of-fact.” The text recounts the actions of the wicked, but shows no weakness or affliction. On the contrary, it ends with a warlike forecast of vindication:

Tract: [O]ften have they fought against me from my youth, but they could not prevail over me. The wicked have wrought upon my back.

They have lengthened their iniquity: The Lord who is just will cut the necks of sinners. (Ps. 128)

The Gospel depicts the dramatic debate between Our Lord and his opponents, in which he again states that God’s judgment will favour him, and in which he affirms his own divinity with the words:

Before Abraham was made, I am. (John 8)

When his opponents are about to stone him, Christ effortlessly hides himself. This may explain the practice of veiling the statues and images during Passiontide.

But even following the conflict of the Gospel, the offertory is completely serene, talking only of God and with no regard for fear or suffering at all:

Offertory: I will give praise to thee, O Lord, with my whole heart. Give bountifully to thy servant, enliven me: and I shall keep thy words. Quicken thou me according to thy word, O Lord. (Ps. 118)

In the communion we hear the words of Our Lord at the last supper – again emphasising that Christ himself is the one in control, delivering himself for us:

Communion: This is my body, which shall be delivered for you: This chalice is the new testament in my blood, says the Lord. This do ye, as often as you shall receive it, for the commemoration of me. (1 Cor. 11:24-5)

Passion Sunday is two weeks before Easter: perhaps we could see its propers as representing the state of Our Lord less than a fortnight before his death. Very few persons could be so composed and serene knowing that in a few days, they would be betrayed, scourged, mocked and publicly crucified – and yet this is the presentation of Our Lord in the liturgy and the Gospels. As Newman said, quoted in the previous part:

“What He suffered, He suffered because He put Himself under suffering, and that deliberately and calmly. […] He said, ‘Now I will begin to suffer,’ and He did begin.”[2]

But in fact, the Gospels show that this composure lasted throughout his passion itself and alongside the continuing suffering and sorrow that “began” in the Garden of Gethsemane.

We find the liturgical expression of this suffering and sorrow in the Mass of Palm Sunday.

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The Mass of Palm Sunday

Everyone knows that the Mass is preceded by a triumphant procession – but the Mass itself has a very different tone from this procession and from Passion Sunday.

For the purposes of this topic, let’s focus on the Mass itself, rather than the triumphant procession.

The propers of this Mass present a very different picture to that of Passion Sunday – and in many cases, they mirror each other. As with Passion Sunday, the introit calls for God’s deliverance – but where there was previously confidence and almost defiance, there is now expressed sorrow:

Introit: O Lord, remove not thy help to a distance from me; look towards my defence. Save me from the lion’s mouth; and my lowness from the horns of the unicorns.
V. O God, my God, look upon me; why hast thou forsaken me? (Ps. 21)

Where the gradual previously affirmed that God deliver him, avenge him and subdue his enemies, it now expresses dismay at “the prosperity of sinners”:

Gradual: […] My feet were almost moved; my steps had well nigh slipped. Because I had a zeal on occasion of the wicked, seeing the prosperity of sinners. (Ps. 72)

The tract of Passion Sunday spoke of Christ’s maltreatment by the wicked (but their inability to overcome him) and the ultimate victory of God. On Palm Sunday, Psalm 21 is sung in full for the tract – expressing the same sentiments appear as Passion Sunday, but with much greater emphasis given to the sorrows and sufferings of the passion itself.

Where the gospel of Passion Sunday showed Christ’s mastery in discussion of his opponents, and his hiding of himself when they sought to kill him, on Palm Sunday we hear the whole of the passion sung.

While Passion Sunday’s offertory sang of praising God “with [his] whole heart”, his heart is now filled with the agony of Gethsemane, as well as the vinegar of the Cross:

Offertory: My heart hath expected reproach and misery. And I looked for one that would grieve together with me, but there was none: and for one that would comfort me, and I found none. And they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. (Ps. 68)

Finally – and most touchingly – where Passion Sunday’s communion had shown Christ in control, offering the chalice of his blood to his disciples, we see another chalice on Palm Sunday:

Communion: My Father, if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, thy will be done.” (Matt. 26)

A change of state

This Mass immediately follows the triumphal procession of Christ as King and Son of David. The contrasts represents a striking transition from a state of power into one of sorrow and suffering.

It might be tempting to think that these states – of triumph, suffering and composure – were successive. The transition from the procession and the texts themselves (particularly the offertory and the communion) seem to cast the Mass of Sunday as a particular commemoration of the agony which began in the garden.

But Palm Sunday is undoubtedly a commemoration of the passion itself. It is the only day of obligation in which a whole passion account is sung in full. This Mass seems to show us that Christ’s agony continued throughout the whole passion, coexisting with the composure and dignity as manifested in the sung passion and on Passion Sunday.

What response can we have when the Church shows us what was transpiring in Christ’s soul at the same time, beneath that great dignity and composure?

Our first response might be one of awe, admiration, and love – especially when we realise that Christ suffers these things to atone for our own sins. We might seek to return his great love with our own, to abide in him by faith, hope, and charity – and to be contrite for the sins which drove him to make such a sacrifice.

But a further response might be entering further into the mystery, by considering how such a sorrow and suffering could be borne with such composure at all.

How could this be?

Some might be tempted to think that, because Christ always enjoyed the beatific vision of God even while on earth, that he was not really able to be sorrowful, or that he was somehow more able to bear these sufferings and sorrows than we would be.

The twentieth century Dominican theologian Fr Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange OP clarifies this misunderstanding:

“Only the summit of our Savior’s human intellect and will were beatified. Jesus willed very freely to abandon to suffering the less elevated regions of His superior faculties and of His sensibility.
“In other words, He freely prevented the irradiation of the light of glory on His lower reason and on His sensitive faculties. He did not wish that this light and the joy which derives from it should by their irradiance lessen in any way the moral and physical suffering which He had chosen to bear for our salvation.”[3]

Garrigou-Lagange gives us a very beautiful image to help us contemplate this mystery:

“Christ’s peace amid suffering reminds us of a high mountain peak whose summit is bathed in sunlight, while its lower reaches are in the grips of a terrible storm. Thus only the uppermost portion of Christ’s superior faculties was free from suffering, because He freely yielded Himself up to suffering without seeking any relief in the vision of the divine essence.
“There is undoubtedly a mystery in all this. Yet we can at least get a faint idea of it in the case of a penitent. St. Augustine tells us that the truly contrite penitent rejoices because he grieves over his sins, and the more he grieves the more he rejoices.”[4]

Finally, Garrigou-Lagrange even answers the idea that Christ would be less affected by these evils than we would be, poor and weak mortals as we are. On the contrary, he says: Christ has really felt the bitterness that fills the lives of so many of us today. In fact, he felt an even greater bitterness than we can imagine, and he did so (in part) so that he could grieve with us in our sufferings.

We can also see this in his condescension and love for those who would later suffer for him:

“He who was on several occasions to preserve His martyrs from suffering in the midst of their torments, by granting them abundant graces, chose to yield Himself up completely to suffering, so that He might save us by the most perfect of holocausts.”[5]

This all leads us to the final question: why would Christ choose to do this? Why would he choose not only to become man, suffer and die for us, but even to put aside everything that might mitigate this suffering – not only in divine things, but even with simple things like wine he was offered to numb the pain?

In The Spiritual Exercises, St Ignatius says that it is because Christ “wants to suffer”.[6] This desire is plain from the Gospels. At one point, Our Lord says:

“I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized. And how am I straitened until it be accomplished?” (Luke 12.49-50)

But this just leads to the same question. Why was Christ so “straitened” and desirous for the passion?

The answer is this:

Christ’s blessed passion itself represents the great manifestation of God’s glory, and the achievement of the greatest work in the history of the world. That work is the one, infinitely pleasing and worthy sacrifice, offered to God on behalf of a race otherwise unable to do so, and thus reconciling this race to him.

As such, it represents the great triumph of Christ.

And, unlikely though it may seem, nowhere else in the Church’s liturgy is the passion commemorated as a triumph so clearly as on Good Friday itself. This shall be the subject of a future part.

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The Roman Liturgy – an ongoing series of standalone pieces

Septuagesima I: The Beginning of the Liturgical Year?
Septuagesima II: The Babylonian Captivity and the Crisis in the Church
Lent I: The Protection of God
Lent II: “What Think You of Christ?”
Lent III: Laetare Sunday and the Church
Passiontide I: The Silence of Passiontide
Christ the King: “Are you a King, then?” – Christendom and the Social Kingship of Christ
Advent I: The Advent Liturgy and the Apocalypse
Advent II: The Close Presence of Christ in Advent
Advent III: Advent and the Preparation for Victory
Christmas and Christ's Triumph over Darkness
Epiphany as the Manifestation of Christ's Kingship
Epiphanytide: Ordinary Time or our Entrance into Eternity?

Further Reading

Dom Prosper Guéranger – The Liturgical Year
Fr Johannes Pinsk – The Cycle of Christ
Dom Columba Marmion – Christ in his Mysteries
Mgr Robert Hugh Benson – Christ in the Church
Sr Teresa Gertrude – Jesus the All-Beautiful
Dom Eugene Boylan – This Tremendous Lover
Fr Frederick Faber – The Precious Blood
Fr Leonard Goffine – The Church’s Year

Book Review: “Christ in the Church” by Mgr Robert Hugh Benson
Book Review: “Christ in His Mysteries” by Dom Columba Marmion
How should Catholics approach Lent today? Timeless advice from John Henry Newman

The WM Review

The Roman Liturgy – The Composure and Agony of Passiontide

“A high mountain peak whose summit is bathed in sunlight, while its lower reaches are in the grips of a terrible storm.”

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