By Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, OnePeterFive, March 29, 2025
Convert from Lutheranism, ordained to the priesthood in 1991 by St. John Paul II in Rome for the Suburbicarian Diocese of Velletri-Segni. Classics at University of Minnesota. Licence and Doctoral studies in Patristic Theology at the Augustinianum in Rome. Formerly a collaborator of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei,” moderator of the Catholic Online Forum, columnist for The Wanderer and the UK’s Catholic Herald, Fox News contributor. Speaker. …
I will guess that we have all heard the explanation of why this Sunday is called Laertare (“Rejoice”) and why we have rose (rosacea) vestments and that the Roman Station is at the Church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. St. John Henry Newman wrote of this church:
“This Basilica is so called, because Saint Helena, not only brought the True Cross there, but earth from Mount Calvary on which the Chapel or the Altar there is built — thus if there be a centre of the Church, we shall be there, when we are on earth from Jerusalem in the midst of Rome.”
Today’s prayers and antiphons focus on Jerusalem and on joy. Psalm 121 (122), one of the “gradual canticles”, songs of pilgrimage to Jerusalem, dominates the Mass: “I rejoiced (laetatus sum) at the things that were said to me: we shall go into the house of the Lord”. Keep before your eyes the image of catechumens preparing for baptism at the Vigil of Easter. They have experienced the scrutinies, the toughest of which would have been during this last week. They were exorcized last Sunday the Basilica of St. Lawrence. They are now drawing close to entering the safe-haven, the Jerusalem which is Holy Church. Today’s Station, the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, with its relics of the Passion, was symbolically Jerusalem for the Romans, and therefore a symbol of the heavenly Jerusalem for which we all long. ….
