This past Wednesday, at the 10am Chapel Eucharist, one of the small group that comes regularly to this little service arrived bearing gifts.
From her purse, she pulled out a handful of little notebooks with blank lined pages, with pens to match. She said “a little pre-Easter gift in anticipation of Easter joy. I just thought they were so pretty”. Of course, the other four of us, all women, loved them! So cute, so thoughtful, such a sweet shade of pink – it’s “Easter-y”, right? Reminds me of Easter bonnets and Easter dresses.
Then as is my habit, I’m afraid, I started thinking out loud. “Well, you know”, I said, “the liturgical color on one of the Sundays in Lent actually is pink, rather than purple – just like one of the Sundays in Advent is pink – that’s why one of the candles on the Advent wreath is pink. Pink, or rose, symbolizes a lightening of the purple penitential tone. The same thing happens in Lent, somewhere in the middle. Maybe last Sunday or this coming Sunday…we are between the third and fourth Sundays, I’m pretty sure.”
So of course she got out her phone and Googled Lent/pink and there it was! The Fourth Sunday in Lent (which is today) is called Laetare Sunday – laetare being Latin for “rejoice”...(read more)
