New Liturgical Movement: Passiontide Veils

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Passiontide Veils - Your Photos

Gregory DiPippo

Thanks to everyone who sent in photographs of their churches with veils for Passiontide. We are looking forward to seeing your pictures of Palm Sunday and the rest of Holy Week.

Church of the Holy Ghost - Tiverton, R.I. (Fr. Jay Finelli, a.k.a. iPadre)

Holy Trinity - Kuldiga, Latvia

Hermitage Chapel of Our Lady of the Garden Enclosed - Warfhuizen, Groningen province, Netherlands

The person who submitted this photograph also tells us that the statue of the Virgin Mary in this shrine is never covered because it is a “Genadebeeld”, a statue (or picture) that is the focus of a pilgrimage. Note, however, that she is covered in black; a similar custom is common in Italy. The hermitage is actually inhabited by a hermit, whom the members of a confraternity help to veil the shrine. The second photograph shows what the chapel looks like without the veils.

Old St Mary’s - Cincinnati, Ohio

Chapelle du Sacré-Coeur de Lindthout, Brussels, Belgium

Oratory of Ss. Gregory and Augustine - St. Louis, Missouri

Abbey of St Gregory the Great (Downside Abbey) - Downside, Somerset England

Downside Abbey has continuously maintained the custom of veiling the statues and pictures in Passiontide, even in the refectory and sacristy, as seen below in the 2nd and 3rd pictures. (The chapel of St Sebastian by Comper is currently in this state because of restoration work being done on the roof.) In religious houses of all kinds, pictures and statues were traditionally veiled throughout in all the buildings, not just in the church itself.