THE HOPE OF GLORY, CAUSE OF OUR JOY.
March 10, 2024.
Fourth Sunday of Lent – Lætare – B.
A Spanish proverb says: “Every season brings its joy.” A
Russian proverb adds: “After a storm fair weather, after sorrow joy.”
There is a kind of joy that springs from today's liturgy. It
is a joy that comes from hope. Amidst all the sorrowful and heartbreaking
events of life, optimistic people will always find a reason to rejoice. While
pessimists give up on fate and happenings, optimists and positivists see always
a glimpse of a better future. The lure of tomorrow shines through how we see
and look at today.
We are today, the 4th Sunday of Lent, in Latin, Laetare
Sunday, or Sunday of Joy. It is a prophetic joy for the future Resurrection of
the Lord and our resurrection with him. It is a joy beforehand. That joy is fed
on hope. Thus, the entrance antiphon: "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)
One could be tempted to ask why should we rejoice in the
midway of the Lenten Journey. It is exactly because we are midway through the
Lenten Season, a pilgrimage that will end not on the Cross at Golgotha, but on
Easter Sunday, the day of the great victory that we should rejoice. Jesus is
our hope of Glory. We foresee his resurrection as a fountain of our life and
purification. Therefore, we rejoice.
The joy of today is because we have the assurance that no
sorrow is permanent. Tears always end by being dried. After Good Friday, there
is always an Easter Sunday.
In the first reading, through the Book of Chronicles, we
hear how the wrath and the mercy of the Lord are revealed to the exiled and how
he brought liberation to his people. The people of Judah fell into a great
infidelity and did what was evil in the sight of God. They worshiped idols,
practiced all kinds of abominations, and polluted the Lord's Temple. God, in
his anger, abandoned them to their fate and gave them as prey to their enemies,
and they knew exile and deportation in Babylon. In his great mercy, however,
the Lord raised a Pagan king, Cyrus, king of Persia, and used him as an
instrument for the salvation and restoration of his people. A great lesson is
that, after trials comes solace.
It was by their fault that the people of God suffered exile,
but it is God's merciful love that would shine on them and bring them back to
freedom from slavery. Here, the joy of the restoration foreshadows the greater
joy of the Resurrection of Christ we are preparing to live. And so, the Apostle
Paul can tell us, through his address to the Ephesians, that God is rich in
mercy and love. And because of his great, measureless, and priceless merciful
love, "even when we were dead in our transgressions, (he) brought us to
life with Chris — by grace you have been saved..."
Here shines this great assurance calling us to trust in God.
We are believers because of what God did and is still doing in our lives.
About belief, the Catechism can say: "Believing is
possible only by grace and the interior help of the Holy Spirit. But it is no
less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and
cleaving to the truths he has revealed is contrary neither to human freedom nor
to human reason. Even in human relations, it is not contrary to our dignity to
believe what other persons tell us about themselves and their intentions, or to
trust their promises (for example, when a man and a woman marry) to share a
communion of life with one another. If this is so, still less is it contrary to
our dignity to "yield by faith the full submission of... intellect and
will to God who reveals", and to share in an interior communion with
him." CCC 154. So, though faith is a human act, it springs from divine
grace. God is the one who calls us to faith, just as he calls us to freedom
from our slavery. Though dead in our transgressions, by grace, we have been
saved. A good reason, therefore, to rejoice.
In the Gospel, the Lord Jesus, in his encounter and dialog
with Nicodemus, gives more reasons for genuine Christian joy. He speaks of
God's love. He speaks of the Resurrection after the event of the Cross. And
lastly, he speaks of our rebirth in baptism. A complete set of renewal and
restoration that must not leave us indifferent but move us to rejoice. We
rejoice because our redemption is near.
About Christian joy, Pope Francis tirelessly insists that we must be joyous, no matter the situation. He says, "Christian joy, “is a joy in hope, which comes”. “In times of trial, we do not see this. It is a joy that is purified by trials, our everyday trials: 'Your sorrow will turn to joy'." May the Lord, in this special time of grace, turn all our sorrows into joy and lead us to the greater joy of the Resurrection of his Son.
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