Lent: March 30th
Fourth Sunday of Lent
Other Titles: Laetare Sunday
MASS READINGS
March 30, 2025 (Readings on USCCB website)
PROPERS [Show]
COLLECT PRAYER
Fourth Sunday of Lent: 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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Today is the halfway mark of the Sundays of Lent; Easter is enticingly near. This Sunday is known as Laetare Sunday for the first word of the Introit or Entrance Antiphon, Laetare (rejoice); it is a Sunday of joy, our foretaste of Easter joy. The celebrant has the option to wear rose-colored vestments. This is also the Second Scrutiny in preparation for the baptism of adults at the Easter Vigil.
This Sunday has a place apart amongst the Sundays of Lent. As in Advent we had Gaudete Sunday, so in Lent we have a Sunday commonly called Laetare Sunday. The whole week, with its wealth of liturgical significance, is intensely interesting. This Sunday in vigesimal is in imitation of Byzantine custom, a Sunday in honor of Our Saviour's Cross, for which reason the Station is at Holy-Cross-in-Jerusalem, a great devotional centre in Rome, especially during Passiontide. The great part of the Mass is inspired by this choice. —Fernand Cabrol, OSB, The Year’s Liturgy: Vol I: The Seasons
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church for the Gospel of the Prodigal Son, Cycle C:
The process of conversion and repentance was described by Jesus in the parable of the prodigal son, the center of which is the merciful father: the fascination of illusory freedom, the abandonment of the father's house; the extreme misery in which the son finds himself after squandering his fortune; his deep humiliation at finding himself obliged to feed swine, and still worse, at wanting to feed on the husks the pigs ate; his reflection on all he has lost; his repentance and decision to declare himself guilty before his father; the journey back; the father's generous welcome; the father's joy— all these are characteristic of the process of conversion. The beautiful robe, the ring, and the festive banquet are symbols of that new life — pure worthy, and joyful — of anyone who returns to God and to the bosom of his family, which is the Church. Only the heart Of Christ Who knows the depths of his Father's love could reveal to us the abyss of his mercy in so simple and beautiful a way. — CCC 1439
Commentary on the Fourth Sunday of Lent Mass Readings, Cycle C:
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).
Laetare Sunday: Jerusalem, Our Mother
Easter is coming! With childlike joy the Church begins to count the days. Just as on the third Sunday of Advent we felt the thrill and happiness of Christmas, so now we anticipate the joy of Easter. Herein lies the whole significance of Laetare Sunday. It brings to the catechumens a foretaste of the good things they will receive at Easter: e.g., the grace of divine worship, a new spiritual mother in holy Church, the Eucharist as the true manna. And we, the faithful, awaken in our breasts a new consciousness of these tremendous blessings.
Easter will soon be here! That is the new theme which permeates and dominates this Sunday's liturgy. From it all other motifs and topics take their inspiration. Christ, the new Moses, provides heavenly manna, the Eucharist, for His disciples. He leads them to the heavenly Jerusalem, the Church, and makes them God's free children.
1. A Day of Joy. This Sunday has a unique distinction in the Church year — a day of joy in the season of penance and sorrow! The priest may wear a rose colored chasuble, the organ may play, deacon and subdeacon are clothed in festive vestments. All the Mass texts ring with joy; the entrance song is a joyous shout, "Laetare — rejoicel" The Church has the following reasons for the happiness in her soul.
a) In the oldest period the Lenten fast at Rome did not begin until Monday of the third week preceding Easter; today then was a kind of Mardi Gras. Later, when the observance was extended to forty days, this Sunday became Mid-Lent — again reason for a pause and relaxation.
b) The ancient Church rejoiced in her catechumens, whose rebirth was close at hand. She was filled with maternal joy at the prospect of a large family. It is this spirit which gives a joyful coloring to all the older liturgy of Lent.
c) Today's celebration is a preview of Easter, we can not quell our joyous expectation as we anticipate the sacred feast. The Gospel says emphatically: "Easter is near!"
d) This Sunday has also a Eucharistic character—an ancient Corpus Christi. Christ is about to establish His family; through blood and sweat He obtains our daily Bread, the fruit of HIs suffering. The Gospel makes this clear. Christ is the new Moses who in the desert of life gives us heavenly manna.
e) Finally, this Sunday is a nature feast. It is springtime and we are happy over the resurrection of nature. The heavenly Father is about to effect the multiplication of bread upon our fields. In the liturgy, however, springtime in nature is merely a figure of the holy spring that with Easter comes into the land of the baptized. The sign of the Church's ver sacrum is the rose, the golden rose blessed today by the Holy Father. Surely there are many and good reasons for the joy surging through Christendom today.
The Golden Rose. It may perhaps seem strange to find the Church in a mood so devoid of sadness and penance during this season of austerity and mortification. Nevertheless today, the fourth Sunday of Lent, the last before Passiontide, she is ringingly jubilant, "Laetare," as the Sunday is called, means "rejoice." Nor is this in any way unnatural because joy and sorrow so often are very close together in the human heart! How frequently joy is born of suffering, how frequently bitter grief crashes our joy! Think, for example, of a mother's pain and happiness, of her joys and worries.
This intricate rhythm of suffering and joy is pointed out for us today by the symbol of the rose. In ancient times Christians brought roses for each other as gifts. Today the Pope blesses the golden rose and delivers a discourse on its symbolism.
a) First of all, I see in the rose a beautiful indication of the closeness between joy and suffering; for with roses come thorns. Should it not fill us with wonder that nature adds thorns to the most beautiful flower of all, the queen of flowers? Do not overlook the great lesson God is hereby teaching.
b) The rosebush is a beautiful representation for the Easter cycle with its two extremes, sorrow over sin and fervent paschal joy. First the thorns grow, then the roses bloom. First we must pass through the thorny period of Lent, first we must hear that sin has banished us to a thorny earth; then, at Easter, the Church opens for us the door of paradise, lush with roses.
c) It was the same for our blessed Savior whose life was very much like the rose. His public career was a thorny bush; yes, in His passion a pricking, piercing wreath was entwined about His sacred head. Along the trunk of the Cross this thornbush grew and its buds did not break open before the stone was rolled back. But suffering was not an end in itself; for Jesus it was only the means of redemption, the sharp point to lance the swell of mankind's guilt, the dark gate to resurrection — His own and that of all God's children. The rose-bush, then, tells us of our Savior's passion and glory.
d) Christ leads, we follow. Christ first, Christians immediately after. Human life is a thorny bush climbing up the tree of the Cross. Self-denial is one sharp thorn, taking up your cross, i.e., embracing all the sorrows and duties and burdens of life, is another. But God promises you roses in return, "Whoever loses his life on earth, will find true, divine life." The rose is the harbinger of holy spring which now has come to our souls. As springtime in nature awakens life, so the Church's spring awakens a God-filled life of grace in all Christ's members. Catechumens, penitents, and faithful are desiring "life in abundance." And its realization brings unspeakable joy!
—Dr. Pius Parsch, The Church’s Year of Grace: Septuagesima to Holy Saturday
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
