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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! Sensually, 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, 1 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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