Lent: March 10th
Fourth Sunday of Lent
Other Titles: Laetare Sunday
MASS READINGS
March 10, 2013 (Readings on USCCB website)
COLLECT PRAYER
O God, who through your Word reconcile the human race to yourself in a wonderful way, grant, we pray, that with prompt devotion and eager faith the Christian people may hasten toward the solemn celebrations to come. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
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"Rejoice, Jerusalem! Be glad for her, you who love her; rejoice with her, you who mourned for her, and you will find contentment at her consoling breasts." This Sunday is known as Laetare Sunday and is a Sunday of joy. Lent is half over, and Easter is enticingly near.
This Sunday was formerly called "Laetare Sunday" since its mood and theme was one of hope and rejoicing that Easter was near. In the reformed calendar this Sunday is not different from the other Sundays of Lent even though the entrance antiphon for the day still begins with the Latin word "laetare" and the vestments worn by the celebrant are rose-colored, not violet. The day is important because it is the day of the second scrutiny in preparation for the baptism of adults at the Easter Vigil.
Click here for commentary on the readings in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.
Stational Church
Sunday Readings
The first reading is taken from the book of Joshua, 5:9, 10-12. Today's reading recounts the celebration of the Passover in the Promised Land by Joshua and those who had sojourned with him in the desert for 40 years.
The second reading is from the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians, 5: 17-21. The reconciliation of mankind with God has been brought about by Christ's death on the cross. Jesus, who is like men in all things "yet without sinning" bore the sins of men and offered himself on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for all those sins, thereby reconciling men to God; through this sacrifice we became the righteousness of God.
The Gospel is from St. Luke 15:1-3, 11-32. This reading recounts the parable of the Prodigal Son, one of Jesus' most beautiful parables. It teaches us once more that God is a kind and understanding Father. The son who asks for his part of the inheritance is a symbol of the person who cuts himself off from God through sin. "Although the word 'mercy' does not appear, [this parable] nevertheless expresses the essence of the divine mercy in a particularly clear way" (John Paul II, Dives in misericordia, 5).
Mercy — as Christ has presented it in the parable of the prodigal son — has the interior form of the love that in the New Testament is called agape. This love is able to reach down to every prodigal son, to every human misery, and above all to every form of moral misery, to sin. When this happens, the person who is the object of mercy does not feel humiliated, but rather found again and 'restored to value'. The father first and foremost expresses to him his joy, that he has been 'found again' and that he has 'returned to life'. This joy indicates a good that has remained intact: even if he is a prodigal, a son does not cease to be truly his father's son; it also indicates a good that has been found again, which in the case of the prodigal son was his return to the truth about himself" (Dives in misericordia, 6).
The station church at Rome is in the basilica of Holy Cross in Jerusalem, one of the seven principal churches of the holy city. It was built in the fourth century, by the emperor Constantine. The emperor's mother, St. Helen, enriched it with most precious relics, and wished to make it the Jerusalem of Rome.
Commentary for the Readings in the Extraordinary Form:
Fourth Sunday of Lent
"Jesus then took the loaves and . . .distributed them to those reclining, . . . as much as they wished" (Gospel).
We all "wish" to be fed with joy,now and forever. The discipline of Lent may sadden our poor frail nature, so the Church analyzes the causes of true joy on this Rejoice or Laetare Sunday (Introit). The first source of genuine joy is a sincere Easter Confession; it emancipates us from the slavery of sin. We now enjoy the freedom of Christ's Gospel of love, because we have been freed from the bondage of that fear which prevailed in the days before Christ (Epistle).
The second source of genuine joy is a fruitful Easter Communion, for which proper preparation and thanksgiving have been made. The soul's instinctive hunger is satisfied by the personal com-muning with God. In the picture, the Host and Chalice are seen descending upon men of all races (symbolized by the awaiting crowd). Humanity thus fed with Divinity, is joyously united in a real social and mystical union. Men will then work for one another in "a city which is compact together" (Communion Verse).
Excerpted from My Sunday Missal, Confraternity of the Precious Blood
Fourth Sunday in Lent (Laetare Sunday)
Station with Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (Holy Cross In Jerusalem):
This church is one of the seven pilgrim churches in Rome. St. Helen, mother of the emperor Constantine, had a church built in Rome to house the relics of the Passion of Our Lord which she had obtained during her pilgrimage to the Holy Land. St. Helen discovered the true Cross of Our Savior with its title and the instruments of His death such as the nails and the crown of thorns. She had the top layer from Mount Calvary removed and placed in barges that carried this material to Rome. She then had the builders use this soil as the ground on which she had the basilica built for the sacred relics. The true Cross and other holy items have been kept in this basilica since its consecration in the fourth century and can be visited to this day. Because of the great relic enshrined there, the basilica is called the Holy Cross and because it is built on the soil from Mount Calvary it is said to be in Jerusalem.
For more on Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, see:
For further information on the Station Churches, see The Stational Church.
Rejoice, Jerusalem!
Uninterrupted sorrow is just as hard for man as uninterrupted joy. Who knows this better than the "mistress of psychology," Mother Church? She, therefore, inserts into this "season of affliction" a day of rest and joy "that we may have relief by the comfort of God's grace" (collect). Her altars are adorned with flowers, her chants perfumed with the music of the organ, her ministers clothed in the "dalmatic of joy," of a color which unites the purple of the forty penitential days with the white of the fast-approaching fifty Paschal days. "Laetare, Jerusalem," and so she rejoices today with all her children.
Joy is the keynote of the Mystical Body. Did not God's angel say so on the birthday of its divine Head? "I bring you tidings of great joy that shall be to all the people." "Laetare, Jerusalem!" These two words are more than an aggregate of sixteen letters. They are a message, a powerful reminder that, where the Holy Ghost operates and where souls co-operate with Him, there also must be joy, which is a fruit of the Holy Ghost.
Why is it that Christians often are so joyless? They act as though they were not redeemed, as though they were not branches of Him who is the cause and fountain of all joy. They walk as children of the "bond woman," the Testament of fear, when in reality they should live as sons and daughters of the "free woman," the Church of love, our Jerusalem (introit), our Mother at whose eucharistic breasts of consolation we drink the joyous "liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free" (epistle).
True, our whole life is a texture of sorrows and joys. Good Fridays and Easter days accompany us on our journey to the land of perennial Easter. But as there is no Good Friday without the assurance that "by the wood of the Cross joy has come into the whole world," so in the soul of a true Christian there is no sorrow bereft of the joy that will come from living faith, strong hope and sincere love: a joy ever sustained and increased by that wonderful Bread which Christ's loving hand multiplies for us in this desert of life.
How strikingly this truth is shown forth by the rose which our holy Father blesses on this day. Does not this queen of all flowers crown a stem of many thorns? Sorrows and joys! Such was the life of our Lord. Thirty-three years filled with thorns of sorrows until on the stem of the Cross He bloomed like a glorious rose filling the whole world with the fragrance of redemption and life. So it must be in the life of His followers, who are not greater than "the First-born among many brethren."
Remember the station of today: Holy Cross! By the wood of this Cross joy has come into the world, into your heart also. Laetare, Jerusalem! Endure the thorns of life courageously. Supernaturalize them. The rose-bud of joy is opening more and more until it reaches its perfection on the day when you will be able to chant: "I rejoice at the things that were said to me: we shall go into the house of the Lord," we shall now make our glorious "introit" into the eternal Jerusalem.
Then there will be no more thorns, only the rose of celestial fragrance, the rose that grew out of a thorn-clad rod of sorrow, blooming to your joy and to the joy of Him who by His precious blood obtained for you an unending "Laetare Jerusalem."
—From Martin Hellriegel, Vine and Branches
