4th Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday) - 19 March
19th March 2023
4th Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday) - 19 March
“You must be as lighted lanterns and shine like brilliant chandeliers among men. By your good example and your words, animate others to know and love God.” - St Mary Joseph Rossello
The fourth Sunday of Lent marks the halfway point of our preparation for Easter and is celebrated with rose vestments instead of the usual violet. Laetare means “to rejoice” in Latin, and the lighter vestments signify a brief celebration in expectation of Easter, even in the midst of Lent.
A reflection on today's Gospel by the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen:
"Christ worked miracles as signs to convince men that He was the one that was promised. He never worked a miracle to amaze a multitude. He never worked a miracle to satisfy His hunger or His thirst. He never worked a miracle to obtain a living. He never received money for the things which He accomplished. He refused to convert the stones of the wilderness into bread to satisfy His own hunger or to cause water to gush out of a rock to slake His thirst. Instead, He asked a woman to let down her bucket to give Him a drink. Our Lord explained why He worked miracles. He said, ‘If I act like the Son of My Father, then let My actions convince you where I cannot. So you will recognise and learn to believe that the Father is in Me and I in Him.’
"There is nothing silly or unreasonable in any of the miracles of our Blessed Lord. They were subject to the tests of everyone. The vast majority of the miracles took place not in the secret places of people’s lives, but in what might be called the physical world where they could be verified scientifically. Our Lord never performed a miracle unless there were witnesses present. When He healed the leper, there was a great multitude following Him. In the healing of the centurion’s servant, He did not even go where the servant was dying. When He raised Peter’s mother-in-law from her sick-bed, the apostles and other people were present. Our Lord never went up into a mountain to perform some miracle alone. His works were accomplished before the eyes of multitudes of people. That is why none of the miracles of our Lord were ever actually denied, not even His Resurrection. The apostles were forbidden by the authorities to teach it and preach it, but the miracle itself was never denied.
"The miracles of our Lord are inseparable from His person. His miracles differed from that of prophets and others inasmuch as theirs were answers to prayers, granted by a higher power. But His flowed from the majestic life that was vested in Him. That is why St John calls them, in his gospel, ‘signs’ or ‘works’, meaning that they were the sort of thing that might be expected from the Son of God. They were evidences of Jesus’ divine revelation. But they were even more, for they testified to His redemptive action as the Saviour of the world. By healing the palsied and the lame and the blind, Christ clothed with visible form His power to cure spiritual diseases. These physical diseases were to Him symbols of that which was spiritual. He often passed from the physical fact of the miracle to its symbolic and spiritual meaning. For example, blindness was a symbol of blindness to the light of faith. By casting out devils from those who were possessed, He pointed out His victory over the powers of evil, whereby men would be freed from slavery to evil and restored to moral liberty.
"If you expel miracles from the life of Christ, you destroy the identity of Christ and the gospels. Even a neutral attitude toward the miraculous element in the gospels is impossible. The claim to work miracles is not the least important element of our Lord’s teachings. Nor are the miracles wrought by Him merely an ornament to His life. They are interwoven with His entire life. The moral integrity of our Lord’s character is dependent upon the reality of His miracles, because if He were a deceiver, He would not be what He claimed to be. Therefore, we cannot put asunder two things which God has joined together, namely, the beauty of Christ’s character and the reality of the miracles that He worked." (Through the Year With Fulton Sheen)
A Lenten Prayer (St Pope Pius V)
Look with favour, O Lord, on Your household. Grant that, though our flesh be humbled by abstinence from food, our souls, hungering after You, may be resplendent in Your sight. Amen. 💖🙏💐
Food for thought
Perhaps there is nothing quite so important in the daily life of a Christian as the need to shine before others with the light of good example. We should live and act as other Christs, repeatedly setting before the eyes of our neighbours and the world the silent testimony of our deeds and our devotion.