Archbishop Dolan's Thought for the Week

March 24, 2009 - Year of St. Paul

Dear Friends united in love and service of Jesus Christ and His Church:

(Thoughtful people have planned a number of “farewells” for me. There will be one this coming Sunday. A Mass at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist with a reception to follow. You’re all welcome. And, there was a grand one last Sunday, at the Basilica of the Shrine of Our Lady Help of Christians at Holy Hill. Thanks so much to our Carmelites and the people who were there. I thought I’d share my homily from last Sunday with you . . .)

“Rejoice” . . . that’s the opening word, the initial imperative in the sacred liturgy for this fourth Sunday of Lent . . . “rejoice!”

And you know the Latin word for “rejoice” is laetare. This, then, is Laetare -- rejoice -- Sunday.

The “Super Bowl” of “rejoice Sundays” is still three weeks away -- Easter Sunday. Wise as she is, though, Mother Church realizes that the somberness, the rigor, the penance of a long Lent can wear us down. So, now that we’re past the fifty-yard line, she reminds us of the goal -- the triumph of Easter -- as she combines the purple of Lenten penance with the white of Easter rejoicing to give us the rose, the pink, of Laetare Sunday.

So, I invite you to “think rose,” “think pink” this Laetare Sunday.

Purple: penance, somberness, sadness, Good Friday, dying;

White: celebration, festivity, joy, Easter.

“Think pink”, and you’ll comprehend my sentiments for this first farewell Mass as I prepare to depart this beloved archdiocese of Milwaukee in three weeks, on Easter Sunday.

Because I am in a “pink” mode. Yes, I admit a sense of excitement, happiness, honor, and gratitude, as I contemplate my new call to apostolic service as pastor, as shepherd, of the Archdiocese of New York . . . there’s the white . . .

. . . but I also readily admit to you feelings of loss, apprehension, and sadness as I leave people I have learned to love and deeply appreciate for nearly seven years . . . there’s the purple.

So I say to you who have so graciously come to this Holy Hill to pray with and for me this Laetare Sunday: thank you . . . thank you, not only for your wonderful presence this Sabbath day, but for your tremendous support, and loving embrace these past nearly seven years. I love you, I thank you, I will miss you.

I look out with great affection upon brother priests, and consecrated religious women and men, upon deacons and their wives, upon our Knights of Columbus, Knights and Dames of Malta, Knights and Ladies of St. Peter Claver, Knights & Ladies of the Holy Sepulcher, upon faithful women, men, youth, and children who make these acres of the Lord’s vineyard in southeastern Wisconsin the fertile, blessed ones they indeed are.

In our “pink posture”, our blend of purple and while, our recognition that we sense today both sadness and joy, we have a particularly radiant companion. In fact, we gather for our family Sunday dinner in her house, for she is our Mother.

This historic “house on the hill” is hardly haunted, but it is full of her maternal presence.

She is the woman who could also wear rose, -- in fact, we call her the “mystical rose” -- for she, like every mother, had her share of sadness and joy.

She was there at the happiest moment of history -- “His-story” -- that first Christmas in Bethlehem, as she gave birth to the savior of the world, and named Him Jesus. We venerate her as the “cause of our joy.”

And she was there again, thirty-three years later, at the bleakest moment in “His-story,” when even the sun hid in sorrow and the earth quaked in mourning, on Calvary, at the foot of the cross, that first Good Friday. Thus do we call her as well, “Our Lady of Sorrows.”

From “round yon virgin, mother and child” to “at the cross her station keeping.”

So I take solace in her, in moments of purple sorrow and white joy, and the pink somewhere in between.

Thank you, beloved Carmelites, for taking care of our Mother’s house so faithfully, making all of us feel ever so welcome.

Thank you, brothers and sisters, in the family of the Church, for being so good to me, your elder brother, these past six-and-a-half years . . . and for coming home to the house of our blessed Mother for our sacred Sunday dinner to bid me farewell.

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan

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