Christ the Cornerstone

Radiate God’s love, bringing hope and healing to all

“Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her. Be joyful, all who were in mourning; exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast” (Is 66:10-11).

Midway through the penitential season of Lent, the Church reminds us that joy, not sorrow, is the meaning of Christian life. This holy season prepares us for the pain of our Lord’s passion and death, but more importantly, it leads us to the inexpressible joy of Christ’s resurrection and his return to his Father in heaven.

The Fourth Sunday of Lent is called Laetare Sunday. Laetare is a Latin word that means “rejoice.” The Gospel reading for Year B describes the reason for our rejoicing: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).

God’s great love for us has been revealed in Jesus, and while our Redeemer suffered many hardships leading to his death on the cross, his ultimate victory over sin and death is the reason for our great rejoicing.

The responsorial psalm for this Sunday (Ps 137) sings of the sorrow experienced by God’s chosen people while they were in exile in Babylon:

By the streams of Babylon
we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the aspens of that land
we hung up our harps.
For there our captors asked of us
the lyrics of our songs,
and our despoilers urged us to be joyous:
“Sing for us the songs of Zion!”
How could we sing a song of the Lord
in a foreign land? (Ps 137:1-4)

Joy cannot be commanded. It springs from the hearts of people who have been liberated from their enslavement to sin and evil. It pours forth like a stream that is no longer blocked but rushes freely to its final destination.

The season of Lent prepares us for the great “rush” of joy that we will experience during the Easter Vigil. It teaches us to endure six weeks of relative darkness in order to appreciate joyfully the light of Christ, which shines most brilliantly on Easter morning. As St. John’s Gospel tells us:

And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God (Jn 3:19-21).

Living in truth, the light of Christ, is what brings joy to our individual hearts and to the world we live in.

In the Second Reading for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle B (Eph 2:4-10), St. Paul reminds the Ephesians (and all of us) that God’s merciful love is stronger than every evil. Paul writes:

God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ—by grace you have been saved—raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. (Eph 2:4-7)

This is why we rejoice even in our penitential practice. God’s love for us is boundless. It far surpasses any sorrow that we feel either because of our own sins or because of the pain that results from the human condition that we share with all our suffering brothers and sisters.

St. John’s Gospel makes it clear that, as Christians, we should not be people who live in fear: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (Jn 3:17). Our joy must shine in spite of the world’s darkness and despair. We should radiate God’s love and, so, bring healing and hope to all who are suffering in any way.

Laetare Sunday gives us an opportunity to look beyond our penitential prayer, fasting and almsgiving to the triumphant joy of Easter.

As we continue to observe this holy season, let’s remember that the only way to the joy of the Resurrection is the way of the cross. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).

May all our sadness by dispelled by the songs of rejoicing that we will sing together on Easter morning. †