During Passiontide the church takes on a strange, perhaps even an eerie, appearance. The covering of the statues with the violet fabric surrounds us with shrouded figures looming mysteriously everywhere we look. The bronze bust of Our Lord crowned with thorns is hidden from us. The Pieta – the statue depicting the Sorrowful Mother holding the Body of her Divine Son at the foot of the Cross – has become to our eyes merely a mound of dark fabric. Even the crucifix itself is veiled from our sight. Only the Stations of the Cross and lonely statues of angels remain visible. Why does the Church cover the images of Our Lord and His Saints during the two weeks before Holy Saturday?

Among other reasons, the Church covers her statues because she wants us to see them in a new light on Easter Sunday. The covering of Our Lord’s images signifies the fact that Christ hid Himself from His enemies during this time. And when Our Lord is shrouded, of course the saints all are obscured as well. Without Our Lord Jesus Christ, there simply are no saints. No one can be saved without Him. Without His death for us, the sentence of condemnation against us all from the moment we are conceived will inevitably be carried out. But is there another reason why the Church covers the images of Our Lord – even the very images which show His suffering and death just at the time of year we are meant to be mindful of those sufferings and ponder that death?

As human beings we have a strong tendency to become oblivious to things around us. They become so familiar to us that they become practically invisible to us. We can trudge into the church and genuflect mindlessly in the center aisle and drop into our places in the pews without even adverting to the Divine Presence in the tabernacle. We are creatures of habit, almost robotic in our routines.

But we are not robots. We have immortal souls designed to know and love – ultimately to know and love God. When Holy Mother Church shrouds her statues, she takes them out of our sight for a brief time so that we can see them anew. We need a fresh look at the powerful images that surround us: they must emerge from the thoughtlessness of our petty habits and become visible to us again. Our Lord Himself must emerge from the obscurity of our mindless routine and His Divine Presence must appear before us in a powerful new light. When the great crucifix is unveiled on Good Friday, we approach with wonderment as we focus on the greatest act of love the world has ever known.