Laetare Sunday 2023

Sermon for Laetare Sunday
Preached by The Reverend Richard G. Cipolla,
Pastor Emeritus, Saint Mary’s Church, Norwalk
at the traditional Latin Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, New Haven, 19 March 2023­­­­­­­­­­­­­_______________________________________________________________

From the Introit: “Laetare Jerusalem.”  Rejoice, O Jerusalem… and from today’s Gradual Psalm: “I rejoiced when I heard them say, let us go into the house of the Lord”.  And from the Epistle: “For freedom Christ has set us free.”

In the American psyche there is a strong relationship between freedom and joy.  The whole American enterprise, both mythical and historical, has been a celebration of freedom, usually understood in the Enlightenment sense: the freedom of the individual from all coercion, whether that coercion be from the State or from organized religion.  It is the freedom to be who you want to be without interference from outside sources.  We call ourselves “the Land of the free and Home of the brave.”  These basic individual freedoms are enshrined in the United States Constitution.  And these freedoms and freedom itself are inextricably linked in the minds of Americans with democracy.  Two World Wars were fought–in our understanding– to make the world safe for democracy.  And we have seen in the post-World War II period in our history, with its own wars in foreign lands, however imperfectly conceived and fought this wars have been, there has been this sense of duty to see to it that democracy spread thought the whole world, and this, always in the name of freedom.  And it is expected that the freedoms enjoyed in a democracy will fulfill the people and make them happy, for the ultimate fulfillment of the individual is to be free.

But we have seen in recent history that even in those places where democracy has been established after decades of dictatorships or some other form of tyranny, there has not been an outpouring of peace and joy based on new freedoms.  In so many cases there is chaos with warring factions trying to destroy each other, and all in the name of freedom.  To point this out is not to deny the value of democracy as a form of government.  It is rather to call attention to a deep forgetting by Catholics about what true freedom is and its relationship to joy and happiness.  What Catholics have forgotten is that the secular understanding of freedom is provisional, is relative and can never by a source of true joy.  The only source of true joy is that freedom won for the whole world by the Cross of Jesus Christ.

“Rejoice, O, Jerusalem”, sings the Introit.  What is Jerusalem in this phrase?  It is not the city in the Middle East which despite being holy to three religions, is a place of constant strife and warfare, both religious and secular.  The city Jerusalem is certainly the place where Christ entered in triumph—not like a Roman triumph—on Palm Sunday and then was crucified on Good Friday some two thousand years ago.  Jerusalem is the place where the Son of God, the Incarnate Word, walked and taught.  As such it provides a grounding for the reality of the Incarnation in history and as such, remains important to every Catholic.  But it has little to do today with the faith that is the Catholic faith.  It is neither an object of our love nor a cause of our joy.

Rejoice, O Jerusalem!  What this phrase means in today’s Mass is the new Jerusalem, the heavenly city, that place where the saint defines what Christian freedom really means and where joy finds its place and expression in the worship of the Lamb who sits on the throne with his wounds glowing like gems. I hesitate to call this place heaven, because that word, even so often in the Church, now carries silly religious images, a place according to preachers at many Catholic funerals to which all Catholics go.  How many fatuous homilies have we heard by priests and bishops telling the family of the deceased that Joe or Mary are right now in heaven.  No—what this Jerusalem means cannot be expressed in words. To even call it a place is misleading, for it is not in time and space but in eternity and hence is beyond our imagination. Those passages in the book of Revelation paint a picture of the New Jerusalem in terms of gold and precious gems, in terms of clouds of incense, in terms of choirs singing praise to the Lamb upon his throne.  It is there that there is perfect freedom, for here there is freedom from sin and death, and it is here that there is freedom for life, for life eternal.  Here is that perfect freedom that is the service of God for eternity: “whose service is perfect freedom”. Here there is unspeakable joy, the joy of those whose personal fulfillment lies not in what they amassed for themselves, nor in how they feel about themselves, nor in their successful relations with other people, but rather and solely in their fulfillment in God, who alone can and does fill that voice that haunts throughout our lives here on earth.

And yet, Jerusalem here also refers to the anticipation of the New Jerusalem that is the Church.  “Gaudete cum Laetitia: rejoice with happiness, you who were in sadness, that you may exult and that you may drink fully from her breasts for your

Consolation”.  The Church as our mother. And this not some abstract church but the Catholic Church, the Church that we know from Rome to our own parish church.  How downtrodden and forgotten is the reality and image of the Church as our mother because of the scandals of immoral and unfaithful clergy!  How marred is the image of the Church as our mother by the vapid self-centered worship that plagues all too many of our parish churches!  How sad is the image of the German bishops who in the name of synodality—the buzz word of the decade—to advance claims about marriage and human sexuality that contradict our Lord’s own words in Scripture, questioning the very existence of the priesthood, denying the reality and binding force of the Tradition of the Church that consists of Scripture and the teaching of the Church through 20 centuries in an effort to be in step with a godless world? How un-Christ-like is the image of the Church that has forgotten the mission to evangelize the whole world!

And yet it is the Church that gives us birth to new life in baptism, that offers up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the living and the dead, that feeds us with the body of Christ in the Eucharist, nourishes us by word and sacrament, who cleans our soiled baptismal garments by Confession, who speeds us on our way to eternal life when we die.  This is a call today on this Sunday for the Church to rejoice, to rejoice in the knowledge that the ultimate freedom has been bought for us by Christ’s Cross, a freedom that cannot be taken away, a freedom that does not depend on a type of government, a freedom grounded in God, and the only source of joy.

And yet, is it not true that we are tempted to despair, not only because of the state of the world today but also because of the state of the Church?  But this temptation comes only because we have forgotten something important.  We are tempted to cynicism and despair because we act and think as if we are of this world.  We have forgotten—and this is a real sin—that we are IN the world without being OF the world, that our goal is beyond this world, that the ultimate meaning of our life and the lives of those we love and the life of the whole word lies outside this world, not in a romantic and deluded sense, but in the sense founded on the fact that God became man and part of this world and died because of and for this world and rose from the dead and ascended into heaven and there waits for us: “that we too may thither ascend”, as the old Collect for the Feast of the Ascension so wonderfully said.

But can we see in some small way, however fleeting, a hint of this joyous freedom that will be ours in faith?  Can we see some intimations of the reality of heaven within the Church?  The answer is Yes.  It is in the Liturgy, especially in the celebration of Holy Mass, that is where we may experience that real joy in freedom that is found only in heaven.  For here, in the Mass of the Tradition of the Church, by means of sight, smell, music, words, silence, archaic language, gestures, all of which binds us to the Tradition of the Church and forces us to deny our own wants and desires, that Sacrifice in which the perfect freedom of God is made present, and when we give ourselves over to what is happening in the Mass here in this time and space for us, we realize what it means to be free, and we catch a glimpse of that joy which will be ours with Mary and all the saints in heaven.

High Mass for the Fourth Sunday in Lent or “Laetare Sunday”

The Fourth Sunday in Lent or “Laetare Sunday” will be celebrated in a Latin High Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, State Street at Eld Street, in New Haven on March 19, at 2:00 pm.  The celebrant will be the Reverend Richard G. Cipolla, Pastor Emeritus of St. Mary’s Church, Norwalk .

Laetare Sunday marks the midpoint of the season of Lent in preparation for the great feast of Easter. On this day the Church takes “time out” from the penitential emphasis in the texts of the liturgy in Lent to encourage Christians with the reminder of the great reward of Christ’s redemptive presence in the world. The opening Introit at Mass “Laetare, Jerusalem” exhorts us as citizens of the New Jerusalem to rejoice as we enter the house of the Lord; the Epistle encourages us to rejoice in Christ as the true Moses who has released us from the bondage of the law and sin; and the Gospel, presenting the miracle of the multiplication of  loaves and fishes, reminds us to rejoice in the Eucharist, which is the figure of the heavenly banquet.

This spirit of rejoicing is reflected in the use of rose-colored vestments and the organ on this Sunday.  Fortified by this liturgy filled with thought of Easter, let us go forward into the second half of Lent with courage and generosity in our penance, prayers, and charitable works.

Music for the service performed by members of the Schola Cantorum of the St. Gregory Society, will include the Gregorian chant proper for the Mass (Laetare), the motet “Ave Regina caelorum” and the hymn “Audi benigne conditor” by Guillaume Dufay, and organ music by Jean Titelouze.

High Mass for the Second Sunday in Lent

The Second Sunday in Lent will be celebrated in a traditional Latin High Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, State Street at Eld Street, in New Haven on March 5 at 2:00 pm. The celebrant will be the Reverend Richard G. Cipolla, Pastor Emeritus, St. Mary’s Church, Norwalk.

Between Moses and Elias on Mount Tabor, Jesus shows forth his divine glory, thus foreshadowing His resurrection. He in Whom His Father was well pleased has joined Himself in fellowship with us, even taking on flesh like unto our sinful flesh, as St. Paul says. He died on the cross to make us co-heirs of His glory and the well-beloved children of His Father in heaven.  He is our elder brother and head; in our prayer we should claim kinship with Him; we should obey His law and unite ourselves with Him in our endeavor to purify ourselves and raise ourselves up towards God.  The texts of the liturgy of this second Sunday in Lent put before us all those dispositions of soul that should be ours in God’s presence in this glorious manifestation of the divinity of Jesus.

May the light of the grandeur and glory of Jesus transfigured prepare us for a contemplation of the humiliation of His Passion.

Music for the service performed by the Schola Cantorum of the St. Gregory Society, will include the Gregorian chant Missa Orbis factor (Vatican edition XI), the chant proper for the Mass (Reminiscere), and polyphonic motets by Giuseppe Ottavio Pitoni, and Leone Leoni.

Ash Wednesday Latin Mass in New Haven


Imposition of Ashes and Low Mass will be offered in the traditional Latin form at St. Stanislaus Church, State Street at Eld Street in New Haven on Wednesday, February 22, at 5:30 pm.  The celebrant will be The Reverend Peter Lenox, Episcopal Vicar for Liturgy and Worship, Diocese of Bridgeport.

High Mass for Quinquagesima Sunday

Quinquagesima Sunday will be celebrated in a traditional Latin High Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, New Haven, Sunday, February 19, at 2:00 pm. The celebrant will be The Reverend Peter Lenox, Vicar for Liturgy and Worship, the Diocese of Bridgeport..

The third of the Sundays of Shrovetide, Quinquagesima, on the fiftieth day before Easter, signals that Ash Wednesday is close at hand. The great Benedictine abbot, Dom Prosper Guéranger, speaks of Quinquagesima as a “time of Abraham” because of Abraham’s “docility and devotedness in following the call of his God.”

In the Gospel of St. Luke on this day, our Lord prepares His
apostles for His coming sufferings, that is, His sacred Passion in Jerusalem. The blind man represents the sinners who break their relationship with God, rejecting the offer of the promises of the Kingdom because of fallen man’s own selfishness in pride. The cry of the blind man is our cry, too: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!.” This prayer moved the heart of Jesus who stopped, called out to him, and healed him. This personal encounter prompted our Lord to ask the blind man to name the desire of his heart: “What do you want me to do for you?” the Lord asks him. “Master, let me receive my sight,” the blind man answers. “Receive thy sight; thy faith hath made thee whole.”

Quinquagesima Sunday invites us to ask for the grace that the blind man had been given: sufficient awareness to beg for the Lord’s mercy in hearing our prayers for forgiveness of sins so that we may live in perfect freedom. Are we as Catholics prepared to be docile and devoted, like Abraham, like the blind man, before the promptings of the Holy Trinity?

Music for the service performed by the Schola Cantorum of the St. Gregory Society, will include the Gregorian chant ‘Missa Orbis factor’ (Vatican edition XI), the chant proper for the Mass (Esto mihi), The plainsong hymn, “O Quam glorifica,” polyphonic motets by Nicholas Renouf and Claudio Monteverdi, and organ music by Guillaume Nivers and Jean Titelouze.