Laetare Sunday, bis

Rejoice!

I had briefly mentioned, before Lent started, that I actually enjoy Lent, and went on to describe it almost as a prolonged retreat.  Well, here we are, having crossed the halfway point, and we're told at Mass to rejoice!  Of course, on Ash Wednesday, we were also reminded not to be gloomy.  But now we are actually to be, not only appear, joyful.  I find this season heartening at the human level, because we all must suffer, and during this time we offer additional, voluntary suffering suffering, and are (for the most part) quite cheerful about it.  We do it together, and can offer each other encouragement along the way.  Also, it seems to go by rather quickly, especially from this point onwards, having finished counting Sundays with 3 last week, and now naming them--Laetare, Passion, Palm, and then Easter!  But, even as penance intensifies in this last bit, so we are reminded of the Easter joy soon to come, and so we are also reminded of how short our sojourn is here on earth, with all our sufferings and voluntary penances before we reach the end of this peregrinatio vitae. 

Looking at Christ on the cross, as we are all called to do during these, days, we see Him voluntarily taking on all our various sufferings, and we see how little our individual sufferings are in comparison, and we see at what great a price He bought us.  We see how willing He was to suffer for us, and how little He asks of us in return. 

Then the patience of the martyrs becomes somewhat more comprehensible, and my own personal complaining seems more reprehensible to me.   And then I have to smile, because I understand that as small and inconsequential my sufferings, yet I know they are chosen for me by God Himself, in a way that I might bear up under, and yet contribute to His redemptive suffering.

Rejoice!  We're in Lent, and yet soon our sorrows will be turned into the joy of Easter! 

Still, I think the Church is wise and wonderful with 40 days of Lent followed by 50 days of Easter.  One lifetime of pain and suffering, joy and prayer, followed by an eternity of endless joy with God!