6 Images from Laetere Sunday

JOY is analyzed in the liturgy of Laetere Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Lent.  True liberty (Epistle Galatians 4) and the true satisfaction of hunger (Gospel John 6) are the causes of joy.  In modernity there is much talk of freedom; but freedom from what! The more talk of freedom, the more heavily we become chained in bondage.

Fr. Leonard Klein

In the Epistle, a contrast is drawn between the slave son of a slave girl (symbolizing the fear begotten by the Mosaic law) and the free son of a free woman (symbolizing the love inspired by Jesus). The Epistle indicates also how freedom, "persecuted" by the flesh, finally triumphs.

In the Gospel, Divine Providence goes so far as to multiply food to satisfy legitimate hunger, the food that also is a symbol of Jesus' feeding our soul with His own Body and Blood.

True freedom can only be gained by a sincere Easter Confession.  Only our Easter Communion will satisfy the soul's instinctive hunger for a personal union with God, and unite us together in a real social  and mystical union to work for one another in "a City which is compact together." (Communion verse)

- Explained by Rt. Rev. Joseph F. Stedman, Confraternity of the Precious Blood, My Lenten Missal