The fourth Sunday of Lent is called Laetare Sunday. Laetare is the Latin word at the beginning of a verse in the book of the Prophet Isaiah in which God announces to the city of Jerusalem the joy of its salvation:
“Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad because of her, all you who love her. Rejoice with her in her joy, all you who mourn over her so that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink with delight at her abundant breasts!” (Is 66:10-11)
This is the joy of Jerusalem that sees her children in exile return to her. The first reading told us in detail about the sacking of the Holy City and the march of the Jewish people to Babylon as punishment for having rejected God's message.
“Early and often did the LORD, the God of their fathers, send his messengers to them, for he had compassion on his people and his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets, until the anger of the LORD against his people was so inflamed that there was no remedy. Their enemies burnt the house of God, tore down the walls of Jerusalem, set all its palaces afire, and destroyed all its precious objects. Those who escaped the sword were carried captive to Babylon, where they became servants of the king of the Chaldeans and his sons until the kingdom of the Persians came to power. (2 Chr 36:15-16, 20)
However, the reading ends with the decision of Cyrus, the King of Persia, to rebuild Jerusalem and to allow the Jews to return home. Jerusalem is invited to rejoice because, although her children have not yet arrived from that far away country, somehow she already sees them coming from afar. Days of happiness, better days are proclaimed to her which fills her heart with joy. The days of purification were over. The time of return was approaching.
The Church wants us to have a similar experience today. Lent is a time of purification for us as the exile was for Israel and today we hear that this purification through sacrifice and waiting will also end for us. It will be at Easter when we will proclaim the great joy of which the first reading was only a promise. The Israelites rejoiced at their deliverance and their return home from Babylon, but we have been promised a greater work. With his Resurrection, Christ breaks the chains of sin and death that enslave us, frees us from the oppression of our old life and brings us back home to communion with God in this life and the eternal joy of Paradise. If on the one hand the Church invites us today to live Lent with intensity and hope in the light of the morning that is already beginning to dawn, on the other hand she encourages us to live this life as a path of purification for the next life, as an exile to our permanent abode in heaven, as a race against time to embrace the mystery of Christ crucified, receive God's mercy, convert ourselves from our lives as slaves of Satan, "dedicate ourselves to the good works" of which Saint Paul spoke, and achieve definitive salvation in one life, holy now, and glorious in eternity. Rejoice because the Lord's deliverance is near!
I would like to take this message that the Word of God gives us today and apply it to the situation that the Church is experiencing at the present time. Exactly a year ago, this ordeal of the pandemic began. I know well how many of you have suffered the loss of your loved ones to this disease, and of your pain because you could not be with them in their last moments. For others, the suffering has had to do with the loss of work, or with the economic and social problems caused by the policies and actions implemented by the authorities. For many others, the greatest suffering is spiritual, and has to do with the way the Church reacted to this challenge: the senselessness of many measures, the outrages against Jesus in the Eucharist, the sadness at seeing the empty churches and for the all the changes that have been introduced that arouse your puzzlement, your disappointment, your reasonable indignation or your more than justified disagreement. I must invite you to offer all that pain as purification for your sins and for the sins of the whole world. Like Israel in exile, this is a time of trial that has come upon us, perhaps, because as it happened to them, neither do we hear God's Word in due time. However, this Sunday I want to announce to you that the day of our liberation is approaching. With the Church, with the prophet, I also say to you: "Rejoice!" God, who loves us and has given us his only Son, will let us see the light at the end of this dark tunnel in which we have been walking for so long.
Last Wednesday, the pastors of the diocese had a webinar with the Bishop to talk about the new plans for moving forward. Personally, I would have liked to hear more than what I heard, but in any case I am left with the good that was communicated to us: the bishop and the diocese have the will to return to what we usually call "normality" and they have asked us to take steps in that direction. To that end, in the coming days I will announce certain changes in our liturgical celebrations that I hope will give a breath of fresh air to those of you who are suffering with everything that is happening. These changes will begin with the Easter Triduum that awaits us in two weeks. Perhaps for some, these changes will still be too little, and perhaps for others too many. I do not know. I will make the decisions that I see as most appropriate in conscience, thinking of the good of souls and within the scope of obedience, which is together with charity and fidelity to the deposit of faith, the only way to preserve the gift of unity within the Church.
Dear brothers and sisters, let us ask the Lord, through the intercession of Saint Joseph, whose feast we will joyfully celebrate this Friday, for the grace to live Lent and this moment in the life of the Church as a deserved purification for our sins, and the grace to rejoice in the hope of knowing that the days of exile and darkness are already ending and that, if we are faithful, we will return happily to Jerusalem, which today represents for us a life in peace like the one we once had and, above all, the definitive salvation that Christ will soon offer us in the mystery of his Death and Resurrection.
