Message from Fr. Con

REFLECTION FOR THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT (YEAR A), Week beginning 19TH MARCH 2023

This Sunday is Laetare Sunday and also Mothers’ Day.
The two correspond every year and such ‘corresponding’ is surely something of a joy in itself.
The actual word Laetare is a Latin vocative – it calls or exhorts us to ‘Rejoice!’
The day is interpreted as a day free from our Lenten penancing. (In fact, every Sunday is similarly understood – for every Sunday of the year is a commemoration of the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Where He has gone before us, we are destined to follow – He is the First Fruits – the first to rise from the dead).
The resurrection from the dead is the central tenet of our Faith. As St. Paul clearly assures us, without such a bodily resurrection, there would be nothing left, in which to place our Faith.
This call or exhortation to ‘Rejoice’ on Laetare Sunday can, and should, include rejoicing at God’s gift of Motherhood. First and foremost, of course, we rejoice at the Motherhood God granted to the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is the Queen of all mothers in past and ongoing human history. She is absolutely the primary and clear, shining example of motherhood. All mothers can, and should, esteem her as both their Mother and their Queen – the Queen of Motherhood.
A BLESSING FOR MOTHERS & MOTHERS-TO-BE
God has brought gladness and light to the world through the Virgin Mary’s delivery of her Child. May Christ fill your hearts with His holy joy and keep you, your child or children, or your expected child or children, safe from harm – in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.