NUNTIATORIA

He Hid Himself and Went Out: From Temple to Calvary in the Silence of Judica me

MASS Judica me
LESSON Hebrews 9: 11-15
GOSPEL St John 8: 46-59
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV

Beloved in Christ,

There are moments in the sacred liturgy when the Church teaches not by what she adds, but by what she removes; not by multiplying words, but by withdrawing them; not by explaining, but by enacting. Passiontide begins with such a moment. The priest comes to the foot of the altar, the place is familiar, the structure remains, and yet something essential is gone. The Psalm Judica me, Deus—so long the threshold of the sacred action—is no longer said. The words Introibo ad altare Dei fall silent. And the Church offers no explanation. She simply removes the words and allows the silence to stand.

But this silence is not absence. It is precision. It is the liturgy conforming itself, with austere exactness, to the reality into which it now enters. For until this point—even in the sobriety of Lent—the liturgy has retained a structure of approach. The priest has stood, as it were, outside the mystery, expressing in the words of the psalm both desire and intention: I will go unto the altar of God. It is the language of distance, of movement not yet completed, of a sacrifice not yet entered but firmly anticipated.

With Passion Sunday, that distance is removed.

The Church no longer permits the priest to speak as one who is about to go, because Christ is no longer presented as one approaching the altar. He has begun to go. The liturgy no longer forms us as those preparing to ascend; it situates us within the ascent itself. The threshold collapses. The movement is already underway.

**“Jesus autem abscondit se, et exivit de templo.”**¹

He hid Himself, and He went out of the Temple. These words are not incidental. They are decisive. The Temple remains—the structure stands, the rites continue, the order is intact—but Christ departs. He withdraws not in defeat, but in fulfillment. He leaves the place that prefigured sacrifice because He Himself is now about to accomplish it. The centre of worship does not disappear; it moves.

And the Church, in her liturgy, follows Him.

She veils her images, because He has hidden Himself. She darkens her sanctuary, because He has withdrawn from sight. She silences the psalm, because the language of approach no longer corresponds to the reality of His movement. What was once preparation must now give way to participation.

Yet the psalm itself is not lost.

It is taken.

It is relocated.

It is given back—transfigured.

For at the very moment Judica me disappears from the lips of the priest at the foot of the altar, it reappears as the Introit of the Mass: *Judica me, Deus, et discerne causam meam de gente non sancta.*² This is not coincidence. It is liturgical transposition of the highest order. The Church has removed the psalm from the priest precisely because it no longer belongs to him in that mode. It belongs now to Christ.

The change is not merely positional. It is personal.

Before Passiontide, the priest speaks the psalm as one preparing to ascend. From Passion Sunday onward, the psalm is no longer spoken by one who is about to go—it is sung by Him who is already going to be offered. The voice shifts. The subject changes. The words remain, but their speaker is transformed.

“Judge me, O God.”

No longer the quiet preparation of the minister.

Now the cry of the Victim.

The Fathers had long taught that the Psalms are the voice of Christ—sometimes as Head, sometimes as Body, always as one Mystical Person. Saint Augustine insists that we must hear Christ speaking in the Psalter: *“Let us hear the voice of Christ in the Psalms.”*³ Saint John Chrysostom likewise affirms that what is uttered in figure by David is fulfilled in truth by Christ.⁴ In Passiontide, this is no longer a principle of interpretation. It is enacted by the liturgy itself.

The psalm is taken from the priest because Christ Himself now speaks it.

The priest no longer says, I will go unto the altar of God, because Christ does not stand at the threshold. He goes. And the liturgy refuses to let us remain at the level of intention when the reality has already begun.

This is the decisive shift: from intention to action, from preparation to sacrifice, from distance to participation.

**Christus assistens Pontifex futurorum bonorum…**⁵

Christ, being come a High Priest of the good things to come.

He does not remain within the Temple. He passes beyond it. Per amplius et perfectius tabernaculum non manufactum—through a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made by hands. The sanctuary toward which He goes is not one contained within the structures of this world. It is fulfilled in His own Person.

And the sacrifice He offers is not that of another.

*Neque per sanguinem hircorum aut vitulorum, sed per proprium sanguinem…*⁶

Not by the blood of goats or calves, but by His own Blood.

Here the movement of Passiontide is revealed in its full theological clarity. Christ leaves the Temple not to abandon sacrifice, but to fulfill it. He goes out not to cease from priesthood, but to exercise it perfectly. He becomes both Priest and Victim, offering not something external to Himself, but Himself. The altar is no longer distinct from the offering. The priest is no longer distinct from the victim. All is gathered into one act of oblation.

And this is why the psalm cannot remain where it was.

It cannot remain the prayer of one preparing to approach, because Christ is no longer preparing. He is acting. He is offering. He is standing as the High Priest who enters not with the blood of another, but with His own. The words of Judica me now belong to that moment—to the threshold of the Passion, to the confrontation with injustice, to the offering that will redeem.

The priest, therefore, is no longer permitted to speak those words as his own preparatory prayer. Not because they are untrue, but because they have been taken up into a greater truth. He now stands, not as one about to act, but as one already drawn into the action of Christ. The distance between priest and sacrifice collapses. The ascent to the altar is no longer the anticipation of Calvary; it is its liturgical presence.

The priest no longer says, Introibo.

He ascends.

And in that ascent, Christ ascends.

In silence.

For Christ does not argue His cause before the unjust. He entrusts Himself to the will of the Father. He does not delay at the threshold; He advances. He does not say, I will go; He goes. And the priest, acting in His person, is drawn into that same movement.

Thus the entire structure of the Mass in Passiontide is transformed. The altar is no longer simply the place toward which we move; it is the place where the sacrifice is already present. The psalm is no longer a preparation; it is the voice of the Priest-Victim. The silence is no longer absence; it is the hiddenness of the Son who has withdrawn from sight in order to be revealed in sacrifice.

And now the question presses itself upon us—not as speculation, but as demand.

Christ has gone out of the Temple.

The structure remains.

The rites continue.

The order is intact.

But He has gone out.

Will we remain?

Or will we follow?

Before Passiontide, one could remain at a certain distance, speaking of ascent, intending approach, retaining a position that was not yet fully implicated in the sacrifice. The words themselves permitted it: I will go. But now the Church removes those words. She removes the possibility of remaining at the level of intention. There is no longer the comfort of saying what we will do. There is only the reality of what Christ is doing.

He goes.

And we must decide whether we go with Him.

This is the severity—and the mercy—of Passiontide. It strips away what is secondary in order to reveal what is essential. It removes the language that would allow us to remain outside the mystery and places us within it. It does not ask whether we understand, or even whether we admire. It asks whether we accompany.

To remain in the Temple is not to deny Christ. It is to remain where everything is still visible, structured, and comprehensible, while He has gone ahead into what is hidden, costly, and absolute. It is to continue within the form while failing to enter the fulfillment.

To go out with Christ is to accept that the place of sacrifice is no longer where we would choose it. It is to follow Him into hiddenness, where sight fails and faith must see; into suffering, where meaning is not explained but enacted; into the offering of Himself, where all worship is brought to completion.

He goes not to another Temple, but to a hill outside the city.

And there, the High Priest will offer the sacrifice.

Not with the blood of another—but with His own.

Not upon an altar of stone—but upon the wood of the Cross.

And that Cross will be the true altar.

And that sacrifice will redeem the world.

The Epistle declares it. The Gospel initiates it. The liturgy enacts it.

And we are drawn into it.

Thus the silence of Judica me is revealed as its fulfillment. The words have not been denied; they have been assumed into the action of Christ. The psalm has not been lost; it has been placed upon the lips of the High Priest who goes to be offered. The priest no longer says, I will go unto the altar of God, because the altar is no longer something to which he goes. It is something into which he is taken.

And we with him.

Christ has hidden Himself.

Christ has gone out of the Temple.

Christ has begun the offering.

And the question that remains—unavoidable, exact, and final—is this:

Will we remain where the psalm is still spoken—

or will we follow where it is fulfilled?

For there is now only one altar, one sacrifice, one priesthood, and one path.

And He has already begun to ascend it.

Calvary.

⸻

Footnotes

¹ John 8:59 (Vulgate).

² Psalm 42:1 (Vulgate); Introit of Passion Sunday.

³ Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps. 42.

⁴ John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Psalms.

⁵ Hebrews 9:11 (Vulgate).

⁶ Hebrews 9:12 (Vulgate).

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