by Fred Moleck
Laetare Sunday, 2009
I know several church musicians who were all excited last week that the impending Fourth Sunday of Lent was going to happen.They knew it was called “Laetare Sunday” in the church’s calendar because it all had something to do with the Sunday being a break from the Lenten disciplines of fasting and wearing purple.
That’s about all they knew. One of them actually thought, however, that it produced a tension in the Lenten spirit. She was right.
The tension lies in the tradition of calling the fourth Sunday of Lent “Laetare Sunday” because, before the reforms of Vatican II, the introit (entrance chant) for the Fourth Sunday began, “Laetare Jerusalem, et conventium facite omnes quis diligitis eam” just as “Gaudete Jerusalem,” the entrance chant for Advent began the same way: “Rejoice, Jerusalem.”
My guess is that some of you, perhaps the younger readers, may not know what an introit is, let alone its significance in seasonal liturgies. So . . .
The introit is the entrance item sung by the choir or schola, which set the tone of the part of the liturgical year the church found itself in.
For example, on Easter Sunday, the introit is “Resurrexi et adhuc . . .” (I am risen and with you). At Midnight Mass on Christmas we would sing “Dominus dixit ad me . . .” (The Lord said to me this day I have begotten you.)
We gloried in singing the “Laetare” on the fourth Sunday of Lent because we knew that Easter joy was well on the way.
Why the break in the Lenten Sunday rhythm? Pope Innocent III in 1216 declared,
On this Sunday, which marks the middle of Lent, a measure of consoling relaxation is provided so that the faithful may not break down under the severe strain of the Lenten fast but may continue the restrictions with a refreshed and easier heart.
It took a papal announcement to settle down the practices he considered extreme. Perhaps there was excessive fasting causing sickness.
Or perhaps there was the moving along in pilgrimage through deserted roads and byways without protection from errant criminals.
Who knows, but I have yet to see any scholarly monograph on thirteenth-century instructions of flagellation techniques on the way to Compostela.
Keeping Lent in the medieval church meant total abstinence from meat, butter, milk and cream—all products of animals.
What did they eat? Bread, probably, with their daily catch of fish if they lived near a body of water. I don’t know if salads had been invented yet.
I’m also wondering about the abstaining from animal flesh. I thought that eating meat was rare in the village and religious community.
Meat was what the people in the castle ate. The village peasants rarely, if at all, had meat. So, why such a big deal?
Laetare Sunday for us is just one more Sunday in the Lectionary cycle. As for a break in the Lenten disciplines, daily abstinence from meat during Lent is not required any more unless you are a vegetarian.
It seems that the “severe strain of the Lenten fast” is irrelevant, but it does provide the choice of rose colored vestments for the priest rather than Lenten purple . . . sort of a liturgical fashion statement.
Perhaps, that is good enough reason to “Rejoice.”
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@comcast.net