Passion Sunday??

[james03]

I've never understood why the Passion is read on Palm Sunday.  It seems disorientating.  Has it always been this way?

I like the contrast between welcoming Jesus on Palm Sunday, and then the wanton betrayal where the jews scream for His death a few days later.  But both are cludged together during Passion Sunday.

The cynic in me wants to believe the Church didn't want to make Holy Thursday and Good Friday Holy Days of obligation.   Anyone know the reasoning behind it?

[Bernadette]

I would think that it's because no one's obliged to attend services during Holy Week, except on Sundays. So the Church wants to make sure that people who stay home on Good Friday are still presented with the Passion. I know that the Passion is included in today's section on Palm Sunday in The Liturgical Year, so it goes back to the 1800s at least. 

[VeraeFidei]

I would think that it's because no one's obliged to attend services during Holy Week, except on Sundays. So the Church wants to make sure that people who stay home on Good Friday are still presented with the Passion. I know that the Passion is included in today's section on Palm Sunday in The Liturgical Year, so it goes back to the 1800s at least.

Good heavens, it goes back a long time before that. Perhaps, the 800's, you meant? Although likely earlier.

Frankly, though, the Church did not form her liturgy based upon Holy Days of Obligation. And even if she did, these days were days of obligation when the Holy Week Rites would have taken shape. Every day of Holy Week used to prohibit servile work, as you know from reading Dom Gueranger.

In any case, it is a common feature of most (all?) liturgical Rites to feature all four Evangelists' Passion narratives during Holy Week - the Roman Rite actually gives probably the most prominence to them by including all four in Masses during the week, unlike for example the Byzantine Rite.

To James' question, this blog post alludes to some sort of answer: http://theradtrad.blogspot.com/2015/03/palm-sunday-repost.html

The takeway, I think, is that Our Lord entered Jerusalem this final time in order to die, for his hour was nearly come. Reading the Passion - but more broadly (and this makes a lot more sense with the pre-55 Rite than the Pius XII Rite) the entire Palm blessing and Procession - juxtaposed with the Mass that follows shows how fickle man can be: proclaiming Christ to be King one day, and just days later clamoring for his blood. In the liturgy we relive these events and also come to understand the significance of the entry into Jerusalem.

[Bernadette]

I would think that it's because no one's obliged to attend services during Holy Week, except on Sundays. So the Church wants to make sure that people who stay home on Good Friday are still presented with the Passion. I know that the Passion is included in today's section on Palm Sunday in The Liturgical Year, so it goes back to the 1800s at least.

Good heavens, it goes back a long time before that. Perhaps, the 800's, you meant?

Actually, no. I'm not very well read on the history of the liturgy. 

[LausTibiChriste]

I hereby summon the powers of The King

[VeraeFidei]

I would think that it's because no one's obliged to attend services during Holy Week, except on Sundays. So the Church wants to make sure that people who stay home on Good Friday are still presented with the Passion. I know that the Passion is included in today's section on Palm Sunday in The Liturgical Year, so it goes back to the 1800s at least.

Good heavens, it goes back a long time before that. Perhaps, the 800's, you meant?

Actually, no. I'm not very well read on the history of the liturgy. 

Well you inadvertently made a prescient point. The version, if you will, of the Passion, and the Rites you likely witnessed on Sunday go back not even to Dom Gueranger. They are the intellectual property of Annibale Bugnini and Eugenio Pacelli. Those two, with other conspirators, managed to shorten the Passion according to Saint Matthew by 41 verses.

[GloriaPatri]

I would think that it's because no one's obliged to attend services during Holy Week, except on Sundays. So the Church wants to make sure that people who stay home on Good Friday are still presented with the Passion. I know that the Passion is included in today's section on Palm Sunday in The Liturgical Year, so it goes back to the 1800s at least.

Good heavens, it goes back a long time before that. Perhaps, the 800's, you meant?

Actually, no. I'm not very well read on the history of the liturgy. 

Well you inadvertently made a prescient point. The version, if you will, of the Passion, and the Rites you likely witnessed on Sunday go back not even to Dom Gueranger. They are the intellectual property of Annibale Bugnini and Pope Pius XII. Those two, with other conspirators, managed to shorten the Passion according to Saint Matthew by 41 verses.

Fixed. You are obliged to refer to all popes and papal claimants by their papal name, VeraeFidei. Do not forget that rule, and show some respect.

[The Harlequin King]

I hereby summon the powers of The King

I'm here.

The answer to your question, James, is that the Sunday before Easter was Passion Sunday before it became Palm Sunday (and then, later, the concept of Passiontide came about, so then Passion Sunday became the Sunday before Palm Sunday). Saint Augustine of Hippo speaks of reading the Passion on the Sunday before Easter as a regular practice, so this is truly ancient. By the time of Pope Leo I, this was established to be Matthew's Passion, while Luke's was on Spy Wednesday and John's was on Good Friday. At last, Mark's Passion was added to Tuesday of Holy Week around the 10th century.

The blessing of palms and its procession actually developed in Gaul/France, as did so many other things, around the 7th and 8th centuries. These were then imported into the Roman Rite itself.


I know you all want to know more about the fascinating traditions behind the palms and the Passion, so I wrote an article yesterday about both here: http://modernmedievalism.blogspot.com/2015/03/palm-sunday-in-sarum.html


Also, a stub on the Vale of the Red Horse and Palm Sunday of 1461: the Battle of Towton, the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil. http://modernmedievalism.blogspot.com/2015/03/palm-sunday-1461-bloodiest-battle-of.html

[LausTibiChriste]

Spy Wednesday is an awesome name for a day