This weekend is one of the two weekends where it is permissible for the priest and the deacon to wear rose vestments. The third Sunday of Advent is Gaudete Sunday, and the fourth Sunday in Lent is Laetare Sunday. Both Latin words mean “rejoice!”

Lent is a penitential season, and its principal character stems from the disciplines of fasting, praying, and almsgiving. The fourth Sunday occurs more than halfway through the Lenten season. The rose vestments remind us of what is yet to come — the celebration of Easter. Forty days of Lent seems like a long time, but Laetare Sunday reminds us that the penitential season is temporal while the Easter season is eternal.

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the seemingly endless pandemic restrictions. Churches were closed to the public and a great period of fear and uncertainty was beginning.  One year later, vaccines have been developed in record time, and now we can hope for a significant relaxing of those restrictions.

The rose vestments tell us something even more profound. The season of Lent bids us to rejoice even in the midst of darkness. I experienced this recently when I anointed a former Ascension parishioner of mine who had contracted COVID and was placed on a ventilator. I was not permitted to be in the actual room for the anointing but was outside looking in from the hallway as a nurse held a speakerphone near him.

I have known him and his extensive family for almost twenty years and have presided at their baptisms, first communion, first reconciliation, confirmation, marriage, and funerals.  Among the last words he heard was the assurance that he was in a state of grace and that God would remain with him.  It was unspeakably sad, especially since the family could not be with me in the intensive care unit.  Laetare suddenly meant something real to me—rejoice!  In that moment, I knew that he knew the kingdom of God was at hand. So it will be for all of us!

Fr. Gary