A Step Further

I've mentioned before in more than one place the custom of veiling crucifixes and images in the church during Passiontide and my fondness for it. Our former sacristan, despite (or perhaps because of) being an ex-nun, never liked the practice, and said the veils struck her as a bit sinister. I've also only recently discovered that veiling does not take place in churches of the Ambrosian Rite, but Surrey is a long way from Milan so this probably doesn't matter that much. I like to see the veils: I think they express a sense of seriousness, the deprivation of signs and symbols directing attention ever inwards towards our own attempts to follow Jesus to the Cross. We went to a concert in a well-known church not far from here, and I doubted, despite the presence of a glorious cross on the reja or iron screen across the chancel, a splendid icon of the Baptism of Christ beside the font, and a Big Six set of candlesticks on the high altar flanking a false tabernacle, there wouldn't be veils evident the following morning - unless they were going to run around very early to get it done before the 8am mass.

Although the crosses, icons, and statue of the Virgin have been veiled at Swanvale Halt since I arrived, I felt that the great paintings and mosaic on the walls ought to be covered too, so this year I bought some more cloth and did so. It means that the veiling is now so visually apparent that it can't be evaded - you can see in the aisle in this photograph that there are yards of purple cloth hanging on the walls. It really makes the point utterly unavoidably - that those elements of the church's decoration that act as windows into Heaven are veiling their faces against the sorrow to come.