A reflection on the readings for March 10, 2024 — The Fourth Sunday of Lent.
Today we are celebrating the fourth Sunday of Lent, also known as “Laetare Sunday,” which means “rejoice.” However, here’s a fun fact: even though the colors of Lent look a lot like the colors of Advent, its message is completely different. It is true that in both seasons, the purple color is used in vestments and decorations, with a pink (or rather, “rose”) liturgical color in the middle of the calendar. However, the path we take is different. Advent has as its main symbol the light that is born at Christmas to illuminate our darkness. The purple of that season reminds us of the dark night we go through. In the liturgical symbology we have elements such as the Advent wreath along with the four candles: three purple and one rose candle.
However, during Lent the main emphasis is on the desert. The symbols that accompany this season are dry: the ashes, the songs, the fact that there is no Gloria or Alleluia. Even the gospel reading at the beginning of the season tells us about Jesus’ time in the desert. With this, the Church sets the tone to follow. A tree needs its branches to dry in order to bear new fruit. Thus, during Lent, we do spiritual exercises, such as fasting and almsgiving, to dry out an old lifestyle and give fruit to a new one.
Today’s readings are already beginning to direct us toward Holy Week, bringing us closer each day to the Easter Vigil and Resurrection Sunday. They don’t do this by giving us shortcuts but by guiding us in the crossing of our own deserts. In the first reading we see in detail the events that put an end to the Kingdom of Judah. With a perceptible sadness on the part of the author, we are told about the destruction of the city and its religious symbols: “Their enemies burned the house of God, tore down the walls of Jerusalem, set all its palaces afire, and destroyed all these precious objects.” However, within this sadness, the same first reading shows us the state of life in which they were already living.
At the beginning of this same first reading, the author tells us clearly and directly that the entire city had lost its path, the direction in which they were to walk in life: “In those days, all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people added infidelity to infidelity, practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the Lord’s temple.” By losing the main focus, it was necessary for them to cross a desert that dried up that old lifestyle to make way for a new one. Using liturgical language, it was necessary to live a Lent to bear new fruit.
So, for all of us it is very easy to lose focus on life, to get used to the routine, to fall into a spiral where I am the center of attention. I cannot afford this anymore; I do not like this new generation; I do not like this Church anymore. As a remedy, the Church gives us some practices to follow to grow in our spiritual journey: Fasting, prayer, and almsgiving.
Fasting reminds us of the hunger that so many people experience and which we often don’t even think about, accustomed to large portions of food. Prayer helps us to hear the voice of God. We get used to telling God how he should govern the church, how he should be worshiped and how I want to receive him. We block ourselves and do not allow ourselves to be guided by God. Almsgiving, giving until it hurts, helps us remember so many people who suffer in this world due to the absence of material goods: absence of money, home, medical services, peace. We get accustomed to such a degree that we become “numb” to the cry of the poor and needy. Given this, Saint Paul in the second reading reminds us that God shows his love and his constant presence among us: “God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us… brought us to life with Christ.” But he also reminds us that God himself wants us to collaborate with Him to make his unconditional love and his constant presence palpable among people: “For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the Good works that God has prepared in advance.”
However, there is another symbol besides the desert that is a central part of this liturgical season: the Cross. The season guides us towards Jesus’ death on the Cross and his Resurrection and today’s gospel presented the cross to us precisely as a symbol of reflection during Lent. The Cross will be the center in the story of Jesus on Good Friday. Indeed, the cross is as difficult to accept as it is to bear. Yet, the Cross brings a type of death, of drought or dryness, but this is only in order to open the door for us to a new chapter. The dry branches of the desert that the Lent and the Cross bring us will bloom again, full of life in the “Easter lilies.”
Image: Adobe Stock. By Badshas
Father Bernardo Lara is a priest of the Diocese of San Diego and pastor of three Southern California parishes: Sacred Heart and St. Margaret Mary in Brawley and St. Joseph in Westmorland.
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