Why rose?

[ChristinaM]

What is the significance of rose as a liturgical color on Gaudete and Laetare Sundays? I ask because my DH is not Catholic and he was curious about what the pink candle on the Advent wreath signified. I explained about Gaudete Sunday being a “break” in a penitential season, and that rose symbolizes joyfulness. But then he asked me why they don’t just use white instead since that’s what we use at Christmas and Easter. Now that stumped me!

 

[FrDavid96]

What is the significance of rose as a liturgical color on Gaudete and Laetare Sundays? I ask because my DH is not Catholic and he was curious about what the pink candle on the Advent wreath signified. I explained about Gaudete Sunday being a “break” in a penitential season, and that rose symbolizes joyfulness. But then he asked me why they don’t just use white instead since that’s what we use at Christmas and Easter. Now that stumped me!

This won’t sound very scholarly, or liturgical, and I’m sure you’ll never see it in any papal documents, but here goes…
Lent/Advent is purple Easter/Christmas is gold
Take a can of purple paint and a can of gold paint and mix them together and you get rose. It’s a way of saying “we’re almost there, but not quite yet.”

I heard that years ago, and from then on, it’s made sense.
Granted, Easter is white, but gold is a substitute, so be sure to add a grain of salt into the mix.

I don’t know what the real symbolism is behind the choice of Rose, though (didn’t know that it meant joy [gaudium]), except to say that somehow it means we’re “almost there.”

 

[Aramis]

It’s still a penetential season… so a joyful Rose but not JOYFUL!!! white or gold!

 

[Mrs_Mac]

The way it was explained to me is that Gaudete Sunday reminds us that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, that Jesus will arrive soon. The rose candle is used because rose is a lighter version of purple.

 

[Digitonomy]

Here is how Fr Zuhlsdorf explains it:

But why pink or properly rose on the third Sunday of Advent?

Easy: rose is the color used on the fourth Sunday of Lent!

Perpend:

In Rome for centuries now there are celebrations of Mass during the great seasons of Lent/Easter and Advent/Christmas at “station” churches. In Lent, the fourth Sunday is called “Laetare” (which means in Latin pretty much what “Gaudete” means…“rejoice!”). The station Mass for “Laetare” Sunday was at the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem not far from the Lateran Basilica (the Pope’s cathedral in Rome).

It was the custom on this day, stretching perhaps back to the time of Pope St. Gregory III (740), for the Pope to bless special roses made of gold that were to be sent to the Catholic kings, queens and notables. Thus it was called Dominica de rosa… Sunday of the Rose.

It doesn’t take much imagination to develop rose vestments from this custom.

Soon the practice of using rose (the technical term for the color to be used is rosacea… from the Latin adjective for “made of roses”) spread from that basilica to the rest of the City. As a Roman practice it became part and parcel of the Roman Missal promulgated by Pius V through the world.

 

[PhilotheaZ]

It’s probably not the reason the Church chooses rose, but here’s what it meant to a priest friend who was in the Navy before he was ordained.

He sometimes had to do night watch on the ship, and he noticed that the sky just before dawn was a rose color.

The color of the approaching dawn, the Light of the World!

 

[ChristinaM]

Lots of very good answers! Thank you all for your insight.