Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

Today is known as Laetare Sunday on the Church calendar. The name comes from the Latin word “laetare,” meaning “rejoice,” which historically is also the opening word of the introit of the liturgy on this day.

Laetare Sunday serves as a “shot in the arm” during the Lenten season, offering a break from the penitential focus and encouraging hope and joy as the Church prepares for the celebration of Easter.

We look up from the somber reflection of Lent toward the hope on the horizon. It’s the reminder that all of this Lenten wilderness wandering is going somewhere. And that somewhere is a very specific place. It is to the empty tomb. It is to the joy of Easter.

In some ways Laetare Sunday is the default mode of Christian living.

While there have been flavors of Christianity that have dwelt deeply in the realities of the cross and the need for repentance there has been a modern turn toward proclaiming that we are an Easter people and should focus instead on the joy of resurrection and new life.

The reality for most people is probably somewhere more in the middle.

A self-recriminating obsession with our sinfulness is its own kind of hubris. We elevate sin to a place where we forget that we worship and follow one who takes away sin.

But a relentlessly cheery blindness to the reality of human pain and suffering makes a mockery of the lived experience of us all and of the experience of Christ and the cross.

Laetare’s rose vestments are not the gold and white of Easter nor are they the deep violet of Lent. They are a blend. They are a unique tension between love and loss, hurt and hope, life and death, today and tomorrow.

So today we live into the tension. We look up from the path to see something there on the horizon. In the distance it looks to be a cross but we’ll see more clearly as the light rises and shows the way.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert