Hidden to Be Seen

Starting on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, also known as Passion Sunday, the seminary takes part in the ancient tradition of covering the crucifix and statues in the chapel with purple cloth. This is done outside the chapel as well – the rooms of various seminarians can be found to have crucifixes, statues, and sacred images covered with purple cloth.

The purpose of this practice is to have a psychological impact on those who enter the different spaces where veiled statues and images are found. In the season of Lent, we recognize that the true glory of God is hidden from our human senses. Our blindness is most perfectly expressed in the Gospel of John. Often throughout these days leading up to Good Friday, we hear that the Jews are blind to the redemptive work that Christ is doing, so blind, in fact, that they will crucify the only Son of God. We too, even as faithful Christians, can fall into spiritual blindness and confusion in our lives. We are often unable to see and perceive the good things that God is doing as he prepares for his glorious passion. The reality, however, is that Christ is hidden in this season so that he can shine forth all the more as we celebrate the Easter season.

The seminary is a place where the grace of hiddenness is treasured. Yes, we seminarians are seen on campus every day by our non-seminarian classmates and we participate in public prayer and ministry work. This doesn’t make us seem very hidden! The greatest transformation that takes place in the lives of seminarians, however, occurs in the very chapel where the covered images are found during this season. Every day from Passion Sunday until Easter Sunday, the seminarians are found praying in the chapel before these veiled images. For me, there seems to be no better image for what takes place in this seminary and in the hearts of the seminarians gathered here by the grace of God.

When the images are covered, the disposition of the chapel changes into one of longing. The covered images make us interiorly saddened because we can no longer see the beauty that we once beheld. In the hearts of the seminarians, there is a similar dynamic. When we enter formation, there is beauty in knowing in a very concrete way God’s will for our lives. He is the one that called us to the seminary, so we can have confidence that this is where he desires us to be. However, as our time here progresses, God takes the gift of our heart and hides it in his own heart. We enter seminary to conform our hearts to His Sacred Heart. The process, however, is one of “uncovering” our hearts as they have been fashioned by the Lord from all eternity: fashioned to love with fatherly love. It is in this way that our seminary formation takes on the Passiontide character of the chapel.

The hiddenness of the images in the chapel is not a permanent hiddenness. It is only temporary so that when the images are uncovered, they can be received back in the fullness of their beauty. Similarly, we seminarians place ourselves daily before the Lord in joyful expectation of what he will reveal in our hearts. We allow Christ to give back to us the gift of our heart as it has been renewed in the center of his own Sacred Heart. As formation continues, our hearts will be uncovered and will be found to be radiantly beautiful because they will be hearts consecrated fully to the Lord. This joy of seminary life is what we express by covering images during Lent. We do not expect the images to remain covered – on Easter Sunday they will be revealed to us again. Similarly, after these days of hiddenness, God will return our hearts to us renewed and filled with even greater joy than when they were left in his hands.

Mr. Anderson is a College IV seminarian for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.