“Rejoice, Jerusalem, and be glad because of her, all you who love her.”  This Sunday is traditionally called Laetare Sunday from these opening words of the Entrance Antiphon of today’s Mass.  Laetare means “Rejoice!” in Latin.  The strict simplicity of the Lenten liturgy is relaxed a little bit today, with prayers that speak of joy and rejoicing, the beautiful gospel of the prodigal son in which we see the joy of a father welcoming his son home, and vestments of the color rose, worn only two days in the year.  Just like on Gaudete Sunday in December half-way through Advent, this day we have a kind of softened purple which tempers the penance of the season with shades of joy and hope. 

Twice a year, on these two “Rose Sundays,” the Church wants to remind us of a stunning and counter-cultural truth: the truth that joy is perfectly compatible with restraint and self-discipline; joy is even compatible with suffering.  Because of what joy truly is.  Our world tends to identify joy with comfort: if we’re free of pain, if we can indulge our every desire, if we can have everything we want, that will make us happy.  That’s a lie.  We all know, deep inside us, because we’ve seen it again and again: sometimes the people with the most stuff, are the most unhappy.  And sometimes the happiest are those with the least, because they are truly free.  “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” our Lord says.  The “poor in spirit” don’t put their stock in things which satisfy only for a brief moment but then leave a feeling of even deeper emptiness behind. Spending life searching for comfort and pleasure alone, always leads to boredom and sadness and loneliness, and ultimately spiritual death. 

This is exactly the dynamic we see unfold with the prodigal son.  He pursues all the pleasure the world has to offer, but they lead him to nowhere but profound emptiness and a sense of loss.  But the moment, in his despair, when he has nowhere else to turn, he returns to the open arms of his father: and that’s when he experiences joy.  He didn’t find any kind of lasting joy in his profligate life of dissipation, in his carousing and his unbridled riotous living: he experiences joy when he returns home, when he experiences forgiveness, when he experiences a kind of resurrection almost, because of his Father’s mercy and love for him, a mercy and love that’s so radical that it confuses the older brother.  But this moment, this moment of return, this is when the Father says, “NOW we must celebrate and rejoice, because he was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.”  This is the joy of being united to Christ; in a strange way, it’s the joy of the cross.  Because the Father that we run home to, the Eternal Father, the All Mighty and All Merciful: with him, the cross never gets the last word.  If we are united to Christ, if we pray, if we worship him at Mass, if we receive the sacraments, that’s our way of running into the loving arms of our Father again and again.  And that’s where we find joy; that’s where we find salvation. 

I’m always tempted on these two rose-colored Sundays to make some terribly clever joke about God not promising us a “rose garden.”  But that’s exactly what he promises us.  Roses are beautiful, and roses have thorns.  Suffering and sacrifice are always part of life, but they are also part of its beauty.  The rose is fragile.  And that’s part of its beauty too.  Along with its tender beauty and sweet smell, are the thorns, and the knowledge that the rose won’t live forever.  Being fragile and vulnerable is part of what makes it so agonizingly beautiful.  Just like life.  And this is the joy of being united to Christ; in a strange way, it’s the joy of the cross.  Of course, we don’t wish to suffer; that would be perverse.  But when we do happen to encounter sorrow, when we undergo suffering, or experience misunderstanding, when we are confronted by our sins and the sins of others, we should turn immediately to the Cross of Christ, the source of our deepest happiness and our firmest strength and support: our hope.  Christ’s Cross is our assurance that our suffering in life is just a thorn; a sharp one maybe, but a thorn that’s part of a beautiful rose.  If we cling to Christ in our moments of sorrow, if we run into his arms like the Prodigal Son, we will rise with him in his Resurrection.  As Holy Week and Easter draw nearer, so do forgiveness, mercy, and grace.  If at times we are afraid of suffering, afraid of penance, afraid to deny ourselves and live for others, the truth of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ should fill us with courage: courage at how short the time of our suffering is; and how great and eternal the reward.  As soon as we cease to be afraid of sacrifice, afraid to forget ourselves and live for others, as soon as we stop being afraid of the Cross, then we can find true peace.  Then our joy can be begin to be complete.  “Rejoice, Jerusalem, and be glad because of her, all you who love her.”