View from your window: Tampa redux, and a little liturgy lesson

Continuing to rub it in, our Tampa reader sends another beautiful shot, this time looking out his office window where the roses are still blooming. Perhaps he'll cut a few of those to style his parish Advent Wreath for Gaudete Sunday.

What's Gaudete Sunday? I was hoping you'd ask!

In the Roman Missal (of which our Sacramentary or altar prayer book is a translation) for each celebration of Mass, there is a verse of a psalm that might be sung as the entrance song. In the original edition, of course, this is given in Latin and on the "half-way" Sundays of Advent and Lent, the psalm verse begins with the words gaudete and laetare, respectively. Both words translate as "rejoice" as the Church calls us to rejoice that we are half-way to the feast for which we are preparing (Christmas, Easter). On what has come to be known as Gaudete Sunday and Laetare Sunday, vestments in shades of rose are worn to visually indicate our progress in the season. And the third candle on the Advent wreath completes the color scheme.

And here's the view from my window this morning: note the absence of roses!