Fourth Sunday of Lent 2022

Image: Unsplash/Tiffany Nguyen

Be sure and pick a rose for this Sunday. Yes, the Fourth Sunday of Lent is called Laetare Sunday, and the liturgical colour is rose. “Laetare” meaning ‘rejoice’, has its place in our Lenten journey similar to “Gaudete Sunday” in Advent when we pause to anticipate the joy of Christ’s coming. Laetare is a more solemn anticipation, but nonetheless a moment in our penitential Lenten path to remember our Creator is a God of love who invites us to healing of body, mind and spirit. The grace of God’s compassionate love is always beside us in our trials and struggles of life.

Simnel cake has been eaten since medieval times as both a rich, sweet treat and a symbolic ritual. The fruit cake is topped with eleven marzipan balls to represent the eleven apostles of Christ, minus Judas.

With the change of colour we recognize it’s a time to briefly glimpse the joy and celebration that awaits us at Easter, like a spring crocus unexpectedly breaking through the earth. In medieval England simnel cakes (special rich fruitcakes) were a treat given out on this day. It is a signal time of hope and encouragement. Always our Creator is a God of compassionate mercy. Our lives follow a cycle of God’s birth life, death, and resurrection and Laetare Sunday reminds us to keep our perspective of the whole journey in mind and heart. As we are born of the Earth, so our spiritual lives are birthed and rebirthed. Soon the fields will break into green garments, the song time of returning birds will be heard and flowers appear in tidy gardens - and in the most impossible cracks of our pathways. Hope will once again be birthed in God’s creation.

“Soon the fields will break into green garments, the song time of returning birds will be heard and flowers appear in tidy gardens - and in the most impossible cracks of our pathways. Hope will once again be birthed in God’s creation. ”

In today’s scripture the themes of God’s generous nourishment and abundant forgiveness is traced through the readings. In Joshua there is the celebration of Passover with the first produce of the land of Canaan that year. And in the Gospel God’s unconditional love and forgiveness is illustrated in the parable of the ‘Prodigal Son’. Although we might well quibble that the lost son didn’t deserve such a feast upon his return from squandering his father’s inheritance, God’s stance in the father’s actions turns our worldly logic upside down. Repentance and sincere contrition are the only the grounds for God’s unconditional love. The way home to our true self in God’s heart and love is open to us.

Each of us have our lost and shadow selves that we would rather not admit to having. Although we’d rather hide them, sometimes our shortcomings and fears, unworthiness and self-doubts are calling out to us for acceptance and compassionate love. As John 4:18 writes, “perfect love casts out fear”. Fear can be an astute warning sign of danger, but when it overtakes us, fear becomes a self-punishment. That is not God’s way, and the message of Jesus constantly reminds and assures us of this ultimate reality. God’s embracing love is there to clothe us in resilient hope and new courage in all times and circumstances.

St. Paul calls us to be ministers of reconciliation, for as we know God’s forgiveness and compassionate love, so we are called to share the abundance of compassion with those we encounter. It is the way of the heart. And it is the message of the rose.

-Sister Linda Gregg, csj

A Home for Peoples' Souls: A Service of Retreat

“A Home for Peoples’ Souls: A Service of Retreat”: Words for a New Day

Have you ever experienced hearing a phrase that seemed to claim you in a special way, has stayed with you over years and that continues to inform and guide your thoughts and actions today? I first heard “my” phrase during novitiate (the time of early formation for new sisters in religious communities) some 18 years ago. When being introduced to the history of the Sisters of St. Joseph in France, where our Congregation was founded, we were told that just prior to and during the French Revolution (1780s) the Sisters became a “home for people’s souls – a service of retreat”. These words somehow lit a spark in me, and I’ve since pondered deeply their possible relevance for today.

The French Revolution took place within a context not unlike our own. Many people lived in deep poverty, disease was rife, there was societal violence and corruption in both church and state. Many lived in fear. Inequalities in society were marked. People were dejected, sick and hope was waning. Above all, people needed a place to feel valued, loved, cared about and safe, a place of momentary respite, a small glimpse of beauty, a moment of promise for a new day. And so, today as we face similar struggles, I think those same yearnings are present in the world and in our local communities, yearnings that Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI, calls a “holy longing”, especially a longing for meaning and belonging in a time of uncertainty and chaos.

“people needed a place to feel valued, loved, cared about and safe, a place of momentary respite, a small glimpse of beauty, a moment of promise for a new day”

As I reflect on these times in which we are living, the words that I heard and loved so long ago seem to have taken on a fresh urgency and relevance: Be, “a home for peoples’ souls, a service of retreat”. By this I don’t mean some superficial, pious interaction or a running away from reality but a being there for one another, being a listening, loving presence, recognizing the needs and vulnerabilities we all have at some time and receiving them with grace. We can all make a difference, however simple, in our own and other’s lives through encountering one another in respect, compassion and care with a deep understanding and non-judgmental approach to the stresses, suffering and anxieties of this time, our time.

In the words of some beautiful prayers of intercession that I encountered this morning: May we be:
home for the broken-hearted;
peace for the war-torn;
hope for the powerless;
wine for those who thirst for justice;
a voice for the oppressed, and
a comfort for the sorrowing.

In these ways may we become for a new day “a home for peoples’ souls, a service of retreat” - witnesses to a oneness of being and fundamental human experience, the reality of belonging, a hidden joy, and an unfolding hope.

-Sister Mary Rowell, csj

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image: unsplash/Luís Feliciano