Passion Sunday
Dear brothers and sisters. Today, Passiontide begins. The liturgy shifts; the crosses are veiled, the tone darkens, and we are drawn more deeply into the mystery of Christ’s suffering. The path narrows. We no longer look at the events of the Passion from a distance—we are being invited to walk with Him, to enter into the mind and heart of the Crucified.
Here at Our Lady of Silence Abbey, we are uniquely positioned to live these days not in outward busyness, but in contemplative depth. Passiontide is not something we merely observe—it is something we live, in the quiet surrender of our hidden life.
The veiling of the crucifix does not mean Christ has left us. It means that we are called to go beyond appearances—to encounter the suffering Christ in faith, in silence, and in love. In this, we walk in the footsteps of our Cistercian fathers.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the doctor of love, reminds us: “There is no greater incentive to the love of God than the remembrance of the sufferings of Christ.” It is in contemplating His Passion that we are purified and drawn into deeper union. The wounds of Christ are not only marks of pain; they are the openings through which divine mercy flows into our souls.
And Blessed Guerric of Igny speaks to our hearts today when he says, “Do not think the Passion of Christ ended with His death; it is to be completed in His Body, which is the Church.” In our monastic silence, in our daily fidelity, in the offering of our prayers for the world, we allow His Passion to bear fruit in us and through us.
Passion Sunday is a call to remain—to remain with Christ as the storm gathers. As monks of Our Lady of Silence Abbey, we remain not with great deeds or many words, but by the constancy of presence. In the cell, in the choir, in the refectory, in the garden—every act, however hidden, becomes an act of solidarity with Christ in His suffering.
Our Lady, the silent witness of the Cross, stands with us. Her heart was pierced, yet she did not turn away. She is the model of contemplative love—strong, still, faithful. And under her patronage, we too learn how to bear suffering—not with complaint, but with trust.
So, let us enter this Passiontide with reverence. Let us strip away all distractions. Let us look to the Cross—not to solve a mystery, but to surrender to it. In the words of Saint Aelred of Rievaulx: “Love is the eye with which we see God.” May that love grow in us in these sacred days, as we follow the Lamb who was slain, all the way to the altar of the Cross.
Amen.