Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection-Sunday Rose

I have a confession:

                                                                        I am a liturginerd.

What does that mean you ask?

Essentially it means this:  someone who is extra enthusiastic about something to do with their church life, whether that’s theology, the liturgy, or just being an exuberant Presbyterian.

One of the reasons I love being Presbyterian is that we follow the liturgical calendar. This calendar begins on the first Sunday of Advent, which normally begins in late November. A major reason why the church follows the liturgical calendar/year can be simplified down to this point:  many periods of time shape us, and most of them do not begin or end at the same time.

The civic new year is, at best, a calendrical device designed to regulate the daily affairs of people. Meanwhile, the liturgical year is the year that sets out to attune the life of the Christian to the life of Jesus, the Christ. Feminist Christian mystic Joan Chittister says, “[The liturgical year] proposes, year after year, to immerse us over and over again into the sense and substance of the Christian life until, eventually, we become what we say we are—followers of Jesus all the way to the heart of God.” The liturgical year is an adventure in human growth, an exercise in spiritual ripening.

Currently the church is smack in the middle of Lent.

Did you know this upcoming Sunday, has a different name and color to it?

The Fourth Sunday of Lent (March 18th) is called Laetare Sunday, when the church (specifically speaking the Roman Church) takes a bit of breather from Lenten practice and opens worship with the Entrance Antiphon, “Rejoice, Jerusalem … Be joyful, all who were in mourning!” – taken from Isaiah chapter 66.

Like the third Sunday of Advent ("Gaudete Sunday"), the fourth Sunday of Lent is a break in an otherwise penitential season.  The day is a day of relaxation from normal Lenten rigors; a day of hope with Easter being at last within sight. One way the church has marked this hope is by changing the paraments from purple to pink. The rose colored cloth on Laetare Sunday is a custom originating as a symbol of joy and hope in the middle of this somber season.

This Sunday could not come at more perfect time. Robins have been spotted under your feeder and I bet, if you look close enough, you can see the earth come alive again.

Resurrection is coming.

Easter is near.

That is good news.

Rejoice, friends. You’re doing good work where you are, exactly as you are.

Here is one last bit of liturginerd information for ya.

Laetare Sunday is also called “Rose Sunday” because of the papal blessing of the golden rose, a floral spray blessed by the pope and given to a notable person or institution.

I’m not the pope.

But I give you this rose because your life,

your story,

your presence

is a gift to us all.

Be well. Be rose-y. Above all, be you!

No matter what the world preaches
spring unfolds in its appointed time,
the violets open and the roses,
snow in its hour builds its shining curves,
there's the laughter of children at play,
and the wholesome sweetness of rhyme.
~Mary Oliver, No Matter What