Today's New Word: Laetare

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you may remember during Advent I wrote about Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete Sunday is the third Sunday in Advent and has a counterpart during Lent: Laetare Sunday. Laetare is a Latin word that means “rejoice.” The commonplace name for this Sunday is Refreshment Sunday. No, it’s not a time when we expand our after service hospitality offerings. 

Thursday of the third week of Lent is the halfway point of the season. If we were keeping Lent as it was kept a couple of centuries ago, Lent would have been a painful and solemn time. Actual fasting would have taken place and we would have all felt the terrible weight of our sins day in and day out. Traditionally, the organ was never played during Lent. Hangings in the Nave were spare and somber, purple for the pulpit, lectern, and altar and all the crosses veiled in the black of mourning. You may have noticed an old tradition of no altar flowers has been resumed; instead we see sticks and a small bit of greenery.

Twenty days of deprivation and despair are hard to bear, and though technically, Sundays don’t require the rigors of Lent to be practiced, most Christians don’t make exceptions. Consequently, we’re tired and feel beaten up--if we’ve kept a Holy Lent. So, to prepare us for the final sprint, the organ was allowed to play. Flowers made their way back to the altar and the purple hangings gave way to rose hued ones. A passage often read on this Sunday gives the day its name, “Rejoice with joy, you that have been in sorrow,” from that great prophet and poet Isaiah. A one day and one day only reprieve. 

The point of Gaudete Sunday and Laetare Sunday is the same. We are provided with encouragement to continue our spiritual journey through the penitential aspects of both seasons. We’ll hear this coming Sunday the Gospel lesson of the Loving Father, usually known as the Prodigal Son. This poor selfish and sinful young man suffers for “a season” and then, humbly returns home, willing to be a servant in his father’s home. But, he discovers a loving parent who has been eagerly waiting for him to return and he is restored to his position as son. Do I need to make this point anymore clearly?

Be refreshed, Jerry