Dawn Before Sunrise
4th Sunday of Lent
Have you ever come across the happy moments when you look forward to meet up with your childhood friends, to go on holiday, or to enjoy a delicious tiramisu dessert made by your own brother, or a mother experiencing baby kicks , anticipating for her baby, and just thinking about it makes you feel energized and good?
There’s a saying that 'the greatest joy lies in the anticipation'.
One of the things that the student friars get to do every year is to go home for a short break. To catch up with our families and friends, to hang out at our old time favourite (kopitiam) cafes , to look forward to mums cooking!
So my family have already started posting pictures in our family WhatsApp group – pictures of beautiful and cozy cottages at the foothill of Mt. Kinabalu. My sister in KL have already started planning on our Dec family trip and everyone is anticipating for it! Most of the time, the anticipation of something good gives us that - extra energy and extra joy - in doing our daily things.
In this season of Lent, we are anticipating for the Easter Celebration. And in our preparation for it, there is that moment when the Church gives us an invitation to be joyful people as in today’s entrance antiphon: “ Rejoice… and be joyful!
“Laetare Sunday" (laetare in Latin: rejoice) is the day when we are 'allowed' to break the penitential season and pink rose flowers are being used to beautify the altar and the piano may be played more fully and the priests are supposed to wear pink rose vestments.
But why pink rose and not brilliant yellow or bright orange or my favourite colour blue ?
When was the last time you saw a dawn before sunrise?
The day doesn't start immediately. It takes time to enter into a full daylight. As Brother Sun peeking over the horizon, he slowly fills the sky with mighty colours of rose , and splashes the clouds with endless rays of violet and pink.
Rose-colored vestments are like the pale color of the horizon when the dark night just begins to brighten as the sun starts to rise. Life here on earth, is life in the dawn of salvation, but the full light of day only comes later. We recognized that there’s some darkness still lingers in us ;and perhaps we want to invite the light to come to us .... and we know we are on the right track when we follow Christ, and that God will guide and strengthen us,
The color rose captures both sides of Christian joy: the partial joy we have now, and the overflowing, complete joy we will experience in heaven. St. Paul in the Second Reading reassures us that Christ will bring us to life and will raise us up with him. And because of that assurance, no matter what situation we are in, we can still rejoice in the Lord.
This was also the experience of ancient Israelites during their exile in Babylon, which we heard about in the First Reading. The Israelites had been unfaithful to their friendship with God,
and so they were conquered by their enemies, enslaved, and taken into exile.
But while the ancient Jews were in exile, God promised through his prophets that he would come and rescue them. After 70 years of exile, the Israelites were looking forward to be released! God inspired King Cyrus to restore their friendship by releasing the Jews to go back and rebuild their Temple; and that’s when God’s promise has been fulfilled.
And in the Gospel Reading He makes the same promise to the human race that is to send a Saviour who would restore our friendship with God, freeing us from slavery to sin, ignorance, and hopelessness, and leading us back to Him.
Dear friends,
As we continue our Lenten practices, we can always find strength in Christ. If you have given up or not have started any Lenten practices, hold your head up and do not grow weary. Ask the Lord for the grace to start again.
As we make our way out of the exile of lent and into the full daylight of Easter, let us renew our hope in Christ because the promise is about to be fulfilled!
