Prayers And Some Gospel For Judica (Passion) Week Devotion.

The Introit for Judica:

Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy: deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man: for Thou are my God and my strength. (From Psalm 43:1,2.)

Verse Response: Send forth Thy light and Thy truth. They have conducted me and brought me unto Thy holy hill, and into Thy tabernacles. (From Psalm 43:3.)

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

The Collect for Judica:

We beseech Thee, Almighty God, mercifully to look upon Thy people, that by Thy great goodness they may be governed and preserved evermore in body and soul. Through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.

What Is Passion Sunday and Passiontide?

Judica, the fifth Sunday in Lent, is also called Passion Sunday. It begins Passiontide, the last two weeks in Lent, concluding on Holy Saturday next week. With Passiontide the church in its liturgical year sharpens the preparation of Lent on the Passion of Christ.

It is the Passion of Christ by which God which distinguishes our cause and delivers us, by which He sends forth His light and His truth, and conducts us and brings us unto His holy hill and into His tabernacles, where we are preserved evermore in body and soul, as the Introit and the Collect pray, where we are sheltered in the arms of God.

Many places put veils over all crucifixes in the church on Judica, a custom which derives from the conclusion of the Gospel reading for Judica, John 8:46-59, "Jesus hid Himself, and went out from the Temple". The veils, usually violet, remain until the conclusion of the Passion on Good Friday, and all other images which are covered remain so until the Gloria, not used during Lent, is sung at the Easter Vigil.

In the last century, Rome obliterated this along with many other things. First, in 1955, Pius XII in his Holy Week revisions renamed Passion Sunday, Dominica Passionis -- nicknamed, as many Sundays are, from its Introit, Judica -- as Dominica I Passionis, The First Sunday of the Passion, and renamed Palmarum, Dominica in Palmis, Palm Sunday, as Dominica II Passionis seu in palmis, The Second Sunday of the Passion or in Palms.

Vatican II, in the new calendar and lectionary promulgated after it by Paul VI in 1969, the novus ordo missae, removed Passiontide altogether, and renamed Palmarum Dominica in Palmis de Passione Domini, The Sunday in Palms of the Passion of the Lord, and counts it Passion Sunday.

Thus does Rome obliterate by fiat both the Gesimatide that leads into Lent and the Passiontide which leads out of it. The catholic church knows it is neither the Catholic Church nor bound to its fiats and, as our Confessions state, continues except where it contradicts the Gospel the ceremonies and the order of Scripture readings at Divine Service previously in use (Augsburg Confession, Articles XXIV & XXVI).

Now from the foul stench of Rome to the sweet smell of the Gospel, Sheltered in the Arms of God, for Judica, also known as Passion Sunday, and the start of Passiontide.