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Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after Quadragesima Sunday
(the first Sunday of Lent) are known as "Lenten Embertide," which,
depending on the date of Easter, can come as early as February
11, but which is seen as associated with the season of Spring (March,
April, May). Liturgically, the lessons for the Wednesday and Saturday
Masses focus on the Commandments given to Moses by God, and on the
promises to those who keep them well, all ending with the story of the
three lads saved by an angel from Nabuchodonosor's furnace, as is so
for all but Whit Embertide.
The Gospel readings speak of Our Lord discoursing on the sign of Jonas,
and how exorcised spirits can return (Matthew 12:38-50), healing the
paralytic (John 5:1-15), and the Transfiguration (Matthew
17:1-9).
The Natural Season
Isaias 61:11
"For as the earth bringeth forth her bud,
and as the garden causeth her seed to shoot forth:
so shall the Lord God make justice to spring forth,
and praise before all the nations."
Spring is the
fulfillment of Winter's hope, beginning in rain and ending in a riot of
birth and rebirth. How perfect, then, that we begin it all with the
Lenten fast and the commemoration of Christ's Passion, and end with Easter, when Christ vanquishes His
tomb, and catechumens are born again by water and Spirit! Sensuously,
Spring is a season of trees done up in green with pastel trim... the
breathtaking blue of a robin's egg... the cool, waxy pleasure of tulip
petals against the skin... butterflies fickle to flowers they mimic
with their delicate wings... newborn animals struggling to open their
eyes and see the world they help make beautiful. Fr. Gerard Manley
Hopkins writes of Spring thus:
Nothing is so
beautiful as spring --
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. -- Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
This season is
also seen as a time for love -- young love, passionate love -- but the
love that lasts must take root in the will, and there is no love truer
or greater than that which Christ, Who is God and Whose will is one
with the Father's, has for His Church. The Canticle of Canticles'
second chapter alludes to Spring as it speaks of Christ beckoning His
Bride:
For winter is
now past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our
land, the time of pruning is come: the voice of the turtle is heard in
our land: The fig tree hath put forth her green figs: the vines in
flower yield their sweet smell. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and
come...
How blessed we
are that the season of love and life brings with it the Feast of the Annunciation, when Our Lady
conceives not just mere life, but the Life, and the Way and the
Truth. And how beautiful that we dedicate May, the month of flowers, to
Our Queen by crowning her at its
beginning, and celebrating her
Queenship at its end. And how blessed we are that, during all this,
Virgo -- the Zodiacal sign that symbolizes
Our Lady with the Root of
Jesse in her hand -- rises in the East in March and is visible all the
while she makes her way across the Spring sky.
Associations
and Symbols
Spring is
characterized by "wet and hot," and is associated with childhood, the
humour of blood, the sanguine temperament,
and the element of air. Giuseppe Arcimboldo's fascinating portraits of
the season and its associated element lead the imagination in all
directions:
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