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CHAPTER XXVIII
Passiontide.
Characteristics of the last fifteen days. During the
first fifteen days of the Lenten Season, the Church re
minded her children of the necessity of doing penance
for their sins. This is indeed, she told them with the
Apostle, an acceptable time, a time of salvation. During
the third and fourth weeks she exhorted them to prac
tise virtue in order to guard against relapsing into sin,
offering to them as a model of chastity the Patriarch
Joseph, and as a model of temperance, Moses the
lawgiver. During the last fifteen days she urges us to
meditate on the great mysteries of our Lord s Passion
and death, asking us to unite ourselves with the suf
ferings of Jesus that hereafter we may partake of the
glory of His Resurrection. Those who do this, says Saint
Leo, may await with assured confidence the unalloyed
bliss promised to those who take a real part in the sor
rows and the Passion of the Man-God. Moreover,
meditation on the Passion is the most efficacious means
of restraining us from sin.
In the liturgy the first Sunday
of these last fifteen
days is called Passion Sunday, because it inaugurates
the time during which the Church more particularly com
memorates our Lord s Passion. It is also called Judica
Sunday from the first word of the Introit of the Mass,
whilst because of the first Responsory in the Office the
title : Isti sunt dies is applied to it. Sometimes it
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