# passiontide | the week the Church gets quiet

An episode of [AfterMass](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1823710125), 23 Mar 2026, 9:10.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO2840618278.mp3

Most Catholics have experienced Passiontide, but don’t actually know what it is. This is the final part of Lent leading into Holy Week, where the Church shifts its focus completely onto the Passion of Christ: His suffering, His sacrifice and the reality of the Cross.If you’ve noticed crosses and statues being covered, or the tone of Mass feeling more serious and focused, it’s the Church is intentionally preparing you for Good Friday in a deeper way.

## Transcript

[0:00] We've made it to passion tide. So what is it?
[0:03] What is passion tide? Let's actually talk about what
[0:06] passion tide is because a lot of us, including myself, we've
[0:09] heard the word or noticed the veils or felt something has
[0:12] shifted, but I've never been explained what passion tide is,
[0:16] so let's review it. So Passion tide is the last part
[0:20] of Lent. Historically, in the Roman
[0:22] tradition, it meant the final two weeks before Easter,
[0:25] beginning the 5th Sunday of Lent, which was yesterday, and
[0:28] that used to be called Passion Sunday, so Holy Week is the
[0:32] second-half of it. In the older liturgical
[0:34] calendar, that distinction was much more explicit.
[0:37] In the current Roman Rite, the word Passion tide isn't
[0:40] emphasized in the same formal way, but the Church still
[0:43] preserves its logic in readings, in the prayers, and especially
[0:47] in the optional custom of veiling the crosses and images
[0:50] starting on the 5th Sunday of Lent.
[0:53] And that right there is the first thing that people miss.
[0:56] Passion Tide isn't a random Old Catholic aesthetic.
[0:59] It's the the Church narrowing your attention.
[1:02] Earlier in Lent, the emphasis is pretty broad.
[1:04] We're fasting and praying, examining our conscience, trying
[1:08] to repent, trying to return to God.
[1:10] And Passion Tide doesn't cancel that, but it tightens the lens.
[1:13] The Church starts pulling our eyes away from our own Latin
[1:16] performance and fixing them more directly on the suffering of
[1:20] Christ, on the road to the cross, on the cost of
[1:23] redemption. And that's why the whole feel of
[1:25] the liturgy changes. And the word itself is
[1:28] important. So when the church says passion
[1:31] here, the church doesn't mean emotion, she means suffering.
[1:35] Christ's passion means his willing suffering, his betrayal,
[1:39] his arrest, humiliation, trial, crucifixion and death.
[1:42] So passion Tide is the period where the church wants you to
[1:46] stop treating the passion like background knowledge and start
[1:50] living close enough to it that it becomes spiritually present
[1:54] to you again. This is also why the veiling
[1:56] that we see in our church matters so much.
[1:59] A lot of see the covered crosses or statues and think that it's
[2:03] kind of just one more Catholic thing that we don't understand
[2:06] or that isn't explained. But the point is actually pretty
[2:09] simple. The Church removes what is
[2:11] familiar so that we stop seeing it casually.
[2:14] When the crucifix is there every single day, we can kind of get
[2:17] used to it. We can glance at it without
[2:19] really looking, and the veil interrupts that.
[2:22] It creates absence. It creates kind of like a visual
[2:26] fasting for us. And in the Roman Missal, this is
[2:29] not auditory everywhere, but it's still expressly permitted
[2:33] beginning on the 5th Sunday of Lent.
[2:35] Crosses remain veiled until the end of Good Friday liturgy and
[2:39] other images remain veiled until the beginning of the Easter
[2:42] Vigil. So if someone ever asks why
[2:45] would the church cover the crucifix right before Good
[2:47] Friday, the answer is because the church wants the unveiling
[2:51] to matter more. There is also a Gospel reading
[2:54] tied to this whole period. One of the traditional
[2:57] explanations for the veiling points to the moment in John's
[2:59] Gospel Gospel when Jesus hides himself from his opponents.
[3:03] The older passion tide customs developed around that growing
[3:06] sense that Christ is entering into the hidden, dark, narrowing
[3:10] path towards his death. So even the church building
[3:13] starts to reflect that movement. Things aren't gone forever, but
[3:17] they're concealed. And that concealment teaches us
[3:20] something spiritually. We are moving into mystery, into
[3:24] sorrow, into the hour of Christ. Historically, this period had a
[3:28] stronger identity then a lot of people actually realize.
[3:32] Older Catholic sources describe Passion Tide as the two weeks
[3:35] between Passion Sunday and Easter, with the first week
[3:39] specifically being called Passion Week and the second week
[3:42] being called Holy Week. Older liturgical writers and the
[3:46] Catholic Encyclopedia actually treat it as its own intensified
[3:49] stretch of Lent. Overtime, especially after the
[3:52] calendar revisions of the 20th century, the formal naming
[3:55] changed in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite.
[3:58] But the theological instinct didn't disappear.
[4:01] And that's why so many traditional customs still kind
[4:04] of cluster here. The church still knows these
[4:06] final days before Easter are different.
[4:09] And that gets to the deeper points, which is that Passion
[4:12] Tide is the church refusing to let you run to Easter too fast.
[4:17] So this is what's really happening.
[4:19] Most of us are fine with Lent when it feels productive.
[4:23] We give something up, we pray more, we get serious, we feel
[4:26] like we're actually doing something.
[4:28] But Passion Tide asks something a little bit harder.
[4:31] It asks us to stay with Christ when the whole atmosphere gets a
[4:35] little bit darker, when the readings become more
[4:38] confrontational and when the rejection of Jesus becomes more
[4:41] obvious, really, when the church is no longer mainly talking to
[4:45] you about your discipline, but showing you the Lamb who is
[4:49] about to be handed over. That's why Passion Tide feels a
[4:52] little bit heavier. And it should.
[4:54] And it shouldn't be in a performative way, but just in a
[4:58] very honest way. The Church wants us to notice
[5:00] that redemption wasn't abstract. It cost something.
[5:03] It cost blood and obedience. It cost the Son of God accepting
[5:08] humiliation and violence, abandonment and death.
[5:11] Passion Tide is the part of Lent where the Church stops letting
[5:14] that stay theoretical. And if you're asking what
[5:17] actually shifts liturgically, a few things are actually
[5:20] happening. So first, the readings take on a
[5:23] little bit of a sharper edge. We hear more and more the
[5:27] conflict around Christ, especially in John's Gospel, and
[5:30] you can feel the opposition kind of closing in.
[5:33] Second, the visual environment can change because of the veils.
[5:37] Third, the whole spiritual direction of the church becomes
[5:40] more explicitly ordered toward the Passion and toward Holy
[5:43] Week. And even when the external
[5:45] changes seem small, the church is doing something very
[5:49] deliberate. Internally.
[5:51] She is bringing the faithful into closer contact with the
[5:55] suffering Christ. So what are we supposed to focus
[5:57] on during Passion Tide? It's not not just suffering in
[6:01] the vague kind of way. We should be focusing on the
[6:04] willing love of Christ and His suffering, on the fact that His
[6:08] passion wasn't just pain inflicted on him, but sacrifice
[6:12] offered by him, On the obedience of Jesus on the way He doesn't
[6:17] run from the hour the Father permits.
[6:20] And on the ugliness of sin and not sin as an idea that we often
[6:26] kind of glaze over. We sin, we sin, we're sinners.
[6:29] We say that so often. But on the ugliness of sin as
[6:32] something that lands on a real body, on a real soul, on a real
[6:37] person who loves us. And we should also be focusing
[6:40] on how quickly human beings turn turn on him.
[6:43] That part too, and that part is hard.
[6:45] But Passion Tide is a good time to stop imagining the passion as
[6:49] something that they did to Jesus and start seeing how betrayal
[6:54] and cowardice, pride, violence and indifference still live in
[6:59] US today. That is why this season has real
[7:02] value. It's not just memorial.
[7:05] It's exposure. It exposes what sin does.
[7:08] It exposes what love costs. It exposes how shallow our own
[7:12] idea of love often is, because most modern people, most modern
[7:17] Christians, think that love means affirmation and ease,
[7:20] chemistry, being understood or being chosen when it feels good.
[7:25] Passion Tide shows us a love that remains when it's rejected
[7:29] and mocked and stripped and nailed down.
[7:32] That is one reason the church keeps giving the season to us.
[7:36] Because without Passion tied, people talk about the cross too
[7:39] quickly and too safely. And if you want to live it well,
[7:44] the answer isn't complicated. But it does require your slowed
[7:47] down attention. Read the passion narratives
[7:50] slowly, not fast, not as a box to check.
[7:54] But sit with those details and notice who stays.
[7:57] Notice who leaves. Notice what Christ says and what
[8:00] he refuses to say. Pay attention Mass.
[8:03] If your parish veils the images, don't just think that looks
[8:07] different, but ask what is the Church teaching you through the
[8:10] deprivation. Spend time before a crucifix,
[8:13] even if it is veiled, precisely because it is veiled.
[8:16] So let that absence preach and don't rush toward Easter
[8:21] emotionally before the Church gets you there liturgically,
[8:24] because that's the whole point. Passion Tide is the Church
[8:27] saying to us, you are very close now stop skimming.
[8:31] Stop generalizing. Stop treating the passion like a
[8:34] story that we're already too familiar with.
[8:37] Stay here. Watch the final approach.
[8:39] Let the cross come back into focus.
[8:42] And when Good Friday arrives, don't need it like a person
[8:45] hearing old information, need it like someone who's been LED
[8:48] there on purpose. That's what Passion Tide
[8:51] actually is. It.
[8:52] It's Lent becoming more exact. It's the church drawing a circle
[8:56] around the cross. And it's the last stretch before
[8:59] Holy Week where everything gets quieter and bearer and more
[9:03] direct, because the Church wants your attention on one thing
[9:07] only, the suffering love of Christ.

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