4th Sunday of Lent - Laetare Sunday

 Guess what? We've found some agreement between the traditional calendar and newfangled: This 4th Sunday of Lent is called "Laetare Sunday." The priest wears rose colored vestments (rose, not pink!) In both the traditional and the newfangled!

More on the plus side: Happy to report that from anecdotal evidence it does seem rose vestments have become more common in the Novus Ordo Masses. That wasn't always so. 

With a longer memory than some, we can report that in the years after the shocking tossing of the traditional Mass after the institution of Pope Paul VI's Novus Ordo Mass became the "regular" practice, rose vestments were thrown out in many parishes.

Recalling now many years of attending Mass at our Novus Ordo parish - and it was a relatively sane parish blessed with good priests - for the most part. Still we felt the absence of those rose vestments. 

There was some respite to this given us during the years we attended the traditional Mass. We were blessed to have "discovered" it at a parish in Manhattan - one of the few offered anywhere at that time. The rose vestments reappeared, as you might expect. The memories we carried for so many years were now manifest. Deo Gratias!

Indeed, along with the rose vestments, the traditional practice of covering statues with the onset of the 1st Sunday of Passiontide (which arrives next Sunday) was a welcome sight during those years. Having served as an altar boy when the practice was still common, we missed those covered statues as well.

Of course, these were two simple visible manifestations of the reverent and meaningful devotion that the traditional Mass brought to us, and still brings to us. And these days, it is offered in more places than way back then when it was a rare occurrence. This even in the face of the Vatican assault on our venerable tradition with that document recently introduced that empowered Bishops and pastors to ban the traditional Masses already being attended by the faithful. 

"Even in the face" would be the happy phrase here. It seems some Bishops have not deemed it necessary to geld the traditional Mass with the Novus Ordo variety. So the momentum that has manifested in recent years has not been wiped off the face of the earth, as that document seemed to have planned - more or less.

But back to rose vestments.

They apparently began to appear in greater numbers a while back (10 - 15 years or so, if memory serves). We've even heard of Novus Ordo parishes covering statues - albeit not in the numbers sporting rose vestments on Laetare and Gaudete (during Advent) Sunday.

Which naturally leads to the current state of the Traditional (a/k/a Tridentine, Latin, most recently "Vetus Ordo") Mass vs. the Novus Ordo. 

"Vs." may seem harsh or confrontational. But let's face it, it seems we have - to keep it simple - two contingents out there (setting aside those outright hostile to the Vetus Ordo): those who believe that the Novus Ordo can be made more reverential, closer to tradition; and those who believe the Vetus Ordo remains the better option with that subset of those who believe the best course is to end the brief run of the Novus Ordo and simply celebrate the Mass as it has been celebrated for centuries.

Those who engage constantly in this debate can get pretty adamant in their opposition. At this time, the NOs have the upper hand. The Vatican supports them. Most Bishops support them. And it does seem most Catholics - at least those who attend Mass - support them.

Will this persist into the future? For the near term, it would seem a good bet. The effort to promote the NO over the decades since its introduction has been intense and universal. The result has been that most Catholics have no real interest in the traditional Mass. Witness any NO Mass, as Catholics take Communion in the hand, and you see the effectiveness of the propaganda of the NO masters. 

Who in their right mind with any history of attending the traditional Mass, with any understanding of the awesome reality of the Holy Eucharist would take Communion in the hand? Only those who have been convinced that that history has been somehow superseded by the plague of Modernism that swept across the terrain before, during, and after Vatican II. Even those who understand and believe that the host is indeed comprised of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity still persist in receiving in the hand.

Count us among the unswept. And being unswept, we send a prayer of gratitude to the Good God Who has seen fit to somehow guide and/or permit the increase of rose-colored vestments on Laetare and Gaudete Sunday.

In other words, we simply count our blessings and pray that the future will brighten for the traditional Mass. Whether it ultimately nudges out the NO is far beyond our pay grade.

But we can always hope.

Happy Laetare Sunday!