4th Week of Lent
From Monday after Laetare Sunday until Holy Week
The Fourth Sunday of Lent, also known as Laetare Sunday, marks the beginning of what some liturgical scholars consider to be the second part of Lent. Each day’s Gospel, from the Monday after Laetare Sunday until Passion or Palm Sunday, will all be taken from six chapters in the Gospel of John.
With the season’s beginning on Ash Wednesday, the just-completed first half of Lent focused on human sinfulness and the need for repentance. During those four weeks, the liturgy urged the faithful to put on “sackcloth and ashes” and to repent from sin. From hereon out, the emphasis is more on how to deeply be with and like Jesus. So, with Passion or Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week within sight, there is an attempt to heighten the desire to celebrate the approaching mystery of salvation, with greater freedom and the true joy that comes from the expectations that are derived from participating in the sacred Triduum.
Taking a spiritual lead from the Fourth Gospel, do not overlook the sense of being situated in a court room observing a grand trial. John’s Gospel utilizes a trial or lawsuit motif, portraying Jesus as both the subject of trials and tribulations (i.e., honor challenges), as well as his being the ultimate judge, with the narrative highlighting forensic imagery and the presentation of evidence to establish Jesus’ identity and divine authority. Portrayed before the eyes of faith, during the latter part of Lent, are two crucial elements of any trial: witnesses and personal testimony. A titanic battle is underway between the forces of darkness and light. During the days and weeks ahead, the opposition to Jesus increases in its intensity. Gradually, it becomes inevitable that the Lord will suffer and die; nonetheless, faith teaches us that the ultimate judgment in this trial is against the twin evils of sin and death.
The third part of Lent consists in the Great Fortnight known as Passiontide–the two weeks between Passion or Palm Sunday and Easter. The last week is Holy Week (Lat. Hebdomas Sancta), while the first of those two weeks is called Passion Week. These various parts of Lent turn the Church’s gaze onto the suffering Christ. On the first Sunday of Holy Week, we begin to enter into the Lord’s Passion and the events that will lead up to His betrayal and death.
The earlier parts of Lent help to understand the deadly results of sin and the amazing love Jesus has for His disciples—the kind of immense love that led Him to willingly give up His life for sinners. The traditional Lenten disciplines of prayer, almsgiving and fasting offer a concrete opportunity to imitate and to meditate on the Passion of Christ, such as portrayed in the Stations of the Cross. The Church in her wisdom understands the need to give her sons and daughters specific spiritual themes to ponder during Lent, gradually preparing every faithful heart for the great feast of Easter, when Jesus conquered sin and death and opened the gates of Heaven.
Prepare your heart for such a wondrous gift and, hopefully, these three parts of Lent will have done what was intended and certainly well help God’s faithful people to do just that—to be well-prepared in acknowledging Christ’s suffering and death have destroyed the reign of those twin evils!
Nature and dignity 