On Laetare Sunday, March 30, 2025

On Laetare Sunday, March 30, 2025

Today is Laetare Sunday, a day of rejoicing as Our Blessed Lord and Saviour’s Easter victory over the power of sin and eternal death is made manifest to the world yet again. The Gospel passage that is read at Holy Mass today provides us with Saint John the Evangelist’s account of Our Lord’s multiplication of the loaves and fishes, which is a prefiguring of the miracle of Transubstantiation that takes place every time the ineffable Sacrifice of the Cross is offered at the hands of a true priest.

Saint Augustine of Hippo’s reflection on this miracle is contained in a set of readings read at Matins in today’s Divine Office:

The miracles which our Lord Jesus Christ did were the very works of God, and they enlighten the mind of man by mean of things which are seen, that he may know more of God. God is Himself of such a Substance as eye cannot see, and the miracles, by the which He ruleth the whole world continually, and satisfieth the need of everything that He hath made, are by use become so common, that scarce any will vouchsafe to see that there are wonderful and amazing works of God in every grain of seed of grass. According to His mercy He kept some works to be done in their due season, but out of the common course and order of nature, that men might see them and be astonished, not because they are greater, but because they are rarer than those which they lightly esteem, since they see them day by day.

Or it is a greater miracle to govern the whole universe, than to satisfy five thousand men with five loaves of bread; and yet no man marvelleth at it. At the feeding of the five thousand, men marvel, not because it is a greater miracle than the other, but because it is rarer. For Who is He Who now feedeth the whole world, but He Who, from a little grain that is sown, maketh the fulness of the harvest? God worketh in both cases in one and the same manner. He Who of the sowing maketh to come the harvest, is He Who of the five barley loaves in His Hands made bread to feed five thousand men; for Christ's are the Hands which are able to do both the one and the other. He Who multiplieth the grains of corn multiplied the loaves, only not by committing them to the earth whereof He is the Maker.

This miracle, then, is brought to bear upon our bodies, that our souls may thereby be quickened; shown to our eyes, to give food to our understanding; that, through His works which we see, we may marvel at that God Whom we cannot see, and, being roused up to believe, and purified by believing, we may long to see Him, yea, may know by things which are seen Him Who is Unseen. Nor yet sufficeth it for us to see only this meaning in Christ's miracles. Let us ask of the miracles themselves what they have to tell us concerning Christ for, soothly, they have a tongue of their own, if only we will understand it. For, because Christ is the Word of God, therefore the work of the Word is a Word for us. (Saint Augustine of Hippo, as found in Matins, Divine Office, Laetare Sunday.)

Dom Prosper Gueranger’s reflection on this Laetare Sunday also emphasized the fact that the Divine Redeemer, Who has died for our sins and has risen from the dead, now feeds the whole world with Himself, the true Manna come down from Heaven:

We are now come to the explanation of another name given to the fourth Sunday of Lent, which was suggested by the Gospel of the day. We find this Sunday called in several ancient documents, the Sunday of the five loaves. The miracle alluded to in this title not only forms an essential portion of the Church’s instruction during Lent, but it is also an additional element of to-day’s joy. We forget for an instant the coming Passion of the Son of God, to give our attention to the greatest of the benefits He has bestowed upon us; for under the figure of these loaves multiplied by the power of Jesus, our faith sees that Bread which came down from heaven, and giveth life to the world. ‘The Pasch,’ says our Evangelist, ‘was near at hand’; and, in a few days, Our Lord will say to us: ‘With desire I have desired to at this Pasch with you.’ Before leaving this world to go to His Father, Jesus desires to feed the multitude that follows Him; and in order to [do] this, He displays His omnipotence. Well may we admire that creative power, which feeds five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes, and in such wise that even after all have partaken of the feast as much as they would, there remain fragments enough to fill twelve baskets. Such a miracle is, indeed, an evident proof of Jesus’ mission; but He intends it as a preparation for something more wonderful; He intends it as a figure and a pledge of what He is soon to do, not merely once or twice, but every day, even to the end of time; not only for five thousand men, but for the countless multitude of believers. Think of the millions, who, this very year, are to partake of the banquet of the Pasch; and yet, He whom we have seen born in Bethlehem (the house of bread) is to be the nourishment of all these guests; neither will the divine Bread fail. We are to feast as did our fathers before us; and the generations that are to follow us, shall be invited, as we now are, to come and taste how sweet is the Lord.

But observe, it is in a desert place, as we learn from St. Matthew, that Jesus feeds these men, who represent us as Christians. They have quitted the bustle and noise of cities in order to follow Him. So anxious are they to hear His words, that they neither hunger nor fatigue; and their courage is rewarded. A little recompense will crown our labours, our fasting and abstinence, which are now half over. Let us, then, rejoice, and spend this day with the light-heartedness of the pilgrims whoa re near the end of their journey. The happy moment is advancing, when our soul, united and filled with her God, will look back with pleasure on the fatigues of the body, which, together with our heart’s compunction, have merited for her a place at the divine banquet.

The primitive Church proposed this miracle of the multiplication of the loaves as a symbol of the Eucharist, the Bread that never fails. We find it frequently represented in the paintings of the catacombs and on the bas-reliefs of the ancient Christian tombs. The fishes, too, were given together with the loaves, are represented on these venerable monuments of our faith; for the early Christians considered the fish to be the symbol of Christ, because the word ‘fish’ in Greek is made up of five letters, which are the initials of these words: Jesus Christ, Son (of) God, Saviour.

In the Greek Church this is the last day of the week called, as we have already noticed, Mesonestios. Breaking though her rule of never admitting a saint’s feast during Lent, she keeps this mid-Lent Sunday in honour of the celebrated abbot of the monastery of Mount Sinai, St. John Climacus, who lived in the sixth century. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B,, The Liturgical Year: Volume V--Lent, pp. 316-318.)

Yes, this is a day of moderate rejoicing, which is noted as follows by the Abbot of Solesmes in the prayer he composed for this day:

Let us, then, rejoice! We are children, not of Sina, but of Jersualem. Our mother, the holy Church, is not a bond-woman, but free; and it is unto freedom that she has brought us up. Israel served God in fear; his heart was ever tending to idolatry, and could be kept to duty only by the heavy yoke of chastisement. More happy than he, we serve God through love; our yoke is sweet, and our burden light! We are not citizens of the earth; we are but pilgrims passing through it to our true country, the Jerusalem which is above. We leave the earthly Jerusalem to the Jew, who minds only terrestrial things, is disappointed with Jesus, and is plotting how to crucify Him. We also have too long been groveling in the goods of the world; we have been slaves to sin; and he more the chains of our bondage weighed upon us, the more the chains of our bondage weighed upon us, the more we talked our being free. Now is the favourable time; now are the days of salvation; we have obeyed the Church’s call, and have entered into the practice and spirit of Lent. Sin seems to us now, to be the heaviest of yokes; the flesh, a dangerous burden; the world, a merciless tyrant. We begin to breathe the fresh air of holy liberty, and the hope of our speedy deliverance fills us with transports of joy. Let us, with all possible affection, thank our divine Liberator, who delivers us from the bondage of Agar, emancipates us from the law of fear, and making us His new people, opens to us the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem, at the price of His Blood.

The Gradual expresses the joy felt by the Gentiles, when invited to enter the house of the Lord, which has now become their own. The Tract shows God protected His Church, the new Jerusalem, which is not to be conquered and destroyed as was that first one. This holy city communicates her own stability and security to them that are in her, for the Lord watches over both the mother and the children. Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B,, The Liturgical Year: Volume V--Lent, pp. 320-321.)

Yes, the Old Covenant has been superseded by the New and Eternal Covenant that our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ instituted at the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday and ratified by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday. Agar and her son, Ishmael, have been sent away. Holy Mother Church is the one and only true means of salvation, and she is blameless in the sight of her Divine Founder, Invisible Head and Mystical Bridegroom. She provides her children with security and stability, not confusion and ceaseless change, something that should prove to anyone who has the gift of intellectual dispassion to admit once and for all that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is not and can never be the spotless mystical bride of Christ the King, the Catholic Church.

May Our Lady of Sorrows guide and protect us during the remaining three weeks as we meditate upon the Sorrowful Mysteries her Most Holy Rosary, and may we always, always, always invoke the power intercession of Saint Joseph. 

The Feast of Saint Joseph is transferred from today to tomorrow because of the Fourth Sunday of Lent, and it is thus that we must remember that he is always first after Our Lady to whom we must fly as he is the one chosen by God from all eternity to protect the Holy Family with whom we seek to be united by virtue of Our Lord’s Easter victory over the power of sin and death after He had walked the Via Crucis—the Via Dolorosa—and died for us on the wood of the Holy Cross.

Appendix

Father Francis Weninger's Third Sermon for Laetare Sunday

"And this He said to try him; for He Himself knew what He would do."--John 6.

"Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?" Christ asked Philip. He questioned him thus to try him. He--Jesus--knew that by a miracle He would feed those who, in order to hear His Word, had so zealously followed Him.

That which Christ did in today’s Gospel is repeated by divine Providence unceasingly in the life of man. Men so often know not what they do, and so little accustom themselves to yield submissively to the decrees of Providence! Were it otherwise, how willingly would God do great and wonderful things in us!

I say: Only too often you know not what you are doing, no matter how clever you deem yourself; but God always knows what He does. Hence yield yourself to His guidance.

Mary, thou who didst stand silent beneath the cross, obtain for us that we may submit as perfectly as thou didst to the divine, though trying, decrees of Providence! I speak in the most holy name of Jesus, to the greater glory of God!

"Father, they know not what they do!" Indeed, most men know not what they do. They neither understand nor reflect on the ways of God, nor allow themselves to be guided by His fatherly hand. They wish the Lord to follow whither they lead, and to do as they wish, because they imagine it will promote their happiness, while only too often it proves to be the cause of their misfortune and ruin.

This is the case, first, with all those who are foolish enough to seek the gratification of their wishes where it can not be found, but where, on the contrary, they meet the reverse. Man, who is created for happiness, seeks to satisfy the inclinations of his nature. He desires worldly goods, honors and pleasures, and these for the longest possible period. God, however, has not created him for these, but for Himself, for His glory; and this, for all eternity, but under the one condition that we serve Him.

The sinner seeks the gratification of his natural inclinations for riches, honors and pleasures; but where and how does he seek it? In creatures, and by the transgression of God's laws. Oh, fatal delusion; for what are all earthly possessions? Dust! What is all earthly honor? Vapor! What is all worldly pleasure? Delusion! What is the longest age? Scarcely a moment, if compared with eternity.

Besides, how true and undeniable is the assurance of Holy Writ, that each one will be punished in that wherein he offended! The proud suffer humiliation; the avaricious, imaginary need; the passionate, wrongs; the envious, losses; the impure, great bodily torments; the intemperate, thirst; the indolent, hardships.

And, notwithstanding this, such men think that they act wisely, and consider the ways of the virtuous foolish, because these do not allow themselves every enjoyment, but turn their eyes from time to eternity, and bestow all their care upon the latter.

"Father, they know not what they do!" But Jesus knoweth what He does when He afflicts these worldly, sinful children of His Church with misfortune, when He throws obstacles in their evil path, and thus calls, admonishes and urges them to repentance.

When the Lord in this manner designs to seek men they ought to be most grateful; for then there is hope that they will return to the path of salvation. No more terrible judgment can befall the sinner than when God allows him to walk unpunished the road to destruction, and recompenses the good moral qualities, which he may still possess, with temporal goods, for then nothing awaits him in the other world save the endless punishment of sin.

But not only to sinners, but also to those who, though they fear God, and keep His commandments, still lead in the world the life of lukewarm and tepid Christians, are the words of God addressed: "They know not what they do," nor what they desire. God, however, knows why He sends this or that calamity, if Christians do not, who, in their ignorance, endeavor to resist or avoid the dispensations of Providence.

The evil sometimes goes still further. Even among good Christians there are unfortunately many who, finding the ways of God incomprehensible, dare even to criticise them in their own mind, or in the presence of their intimate friends, and who, refusing to put themselves entirely in God's hands, never draw, for the sanctification of their souls, the full benefit from the sacred dispensations of divine Providence.

Why are these miserable and deluded persons so obstinate, so unyielding? I answer: Because they judge the ways of God as they appear to them; they are not sufficiently penetrated with the light of holy faith, and do yield to their self-conceit.

It is not without reason that Jesus exhorts us "not to judge according to the appearance." It may happen, and, in fact, not seldom does happen, that pious and zealous souls make plans, and are confused and embarrassed when, on the point of carrying them out, they find that these plans have been thwarted and rendered futile. God allows this; but men do not know it, and can not comprehend why He permits it. Why? Because they do not really know men as they are; but God knows them.

They do not know themselves, or how they stand in the sight of God. Not so, however, Jesus. He knows how weak they are, and that, if they began the work, they would leave it unfinished, and abandon it, which would be worse than not to have begun it at all.

They can not read the heart of men. Not so, however, Jesus. He knows what He does. He knows that those very persons who now seem favorably disposed towards them, would afterwards oppose their work, and destroy it. They do not know that a good deed done now may prevent the execution of a better work later.

Finally, they do not consider that God has no need of us to lead souls to their destination, and that frequently He only bestows upon us the merit of our good intentions. "Lord, Thou hast no need of my works," says the Psalmist. Oh, how beneficial to every soul would it be if she made a similar confession! Then the arm of God would not be shortened; for, seeing us perfectly willing to let Him act for us, and to leave to Him the results of all our labors, whatever their importance, He would be most ready to multiply the loaves of bread that is, to increase His graces and blessings, because we would then be working only for His honor and glory, and not for our own self-love and vanity.

If we are thus disposed, if we act in this manner, then will those, who are Christians only in name, be induced to say, when they consider our life: We can not understand how people can live thus; how they can care so little for worldly goods, so little for amusement, honor, and the approbation of men; and, withal, be so lavish in providing for the needy, in seeking, at so much trouble and division, for the well-being of others. How can they despise the world, and seem to find heaven upon earth in union with Jesus, especially in the Most Holy Sacrament? They do not understand this; they do not know it. But those who live thus know why, and they can say, with David: "I believe, therefore do I speak thus."

I believe, I trust in Jesus, therefore I live thus, and in joy and sorrow exclaim: Jesus, in life and in death, I am thine! Amen!

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.