Passion Week

Passion Week is a name for the week beginning on Passion Sunday, as the Fifth Sunday of Lent was once called in the Roman Rite.

However, even before Pope John XXIII's Code of Rubrics (1960) changed the name of this Sunday from "Passion Sunday" (Dominica de Passione)^[1] to "First Sunday of the Passion" (Dominica I Passionis),^[2] the liturgical books gave no special name to this week, referring to the days in it simply as "Monday (etc.) after Passion Sunday", which in Pope John XXIII's edition of the Roman Missal became "Monday (etc.) after the First Sunday of the Passion".

In Pope John XXIII's revision, not only the Sunday that had previously had the exclusive name of Passion Sunday but also the following Sunday referred in their names to the Passion. The latter became the "Second Sunday of the Passion or Palm Sunday" (Dominica II Passionis seu in Palmis).^[3] The week beginning on that Sunday continued to have a distinctive name, "Holy Week" ("Hebdomada sancta") (previously, "Great Week", "Hebdomada major", but referred to in English as Holy Week), and the first days in it were called "Monday (etc.) of Holy Week", not "Monday (etc.) after the Second Sunday of the Passion or Palm Sunday".

In the 1969 revision, Passiontide ceased to be a separate liturgical season and became the Fifth Week of Lent, followed by Holy Week.

Until the introduction of the new Harmony of the Gospel Readings for Holy Week in 1969, English-speaking members of the Moravian Church used the name "Passion Week" for Holy Week, a week much more closely associated with the Passion of Christ.

References