Upper Torso of the BVM on Pink Gaudete Advent Ceramic Ornament

The Third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is a Latin word meaning "Rejoice.” It is the first word of the Introit of this day's Mass. Gaudete Sunday is a significant celebration because it marks the halfway point in the Advent season and signals a shift in mood from the solemnity of the season’s first two weeks that focused on repentance and watchfulness to the season’s last two weeks that focus on the joyful anticipation of the Savior’s birth at Christmas. Pink (or light rose) is its liturgical color, appearing in priestly vestments and in the third of the four candles of Advent wreaths. + Here, the Blessed Virgin Mary, obviously pregnant and in her third trimester, is depicted wearing a deep pink robe cinched above her belly with a gold ribbon and a royal blue hooded mantle lined in emerald green. The original painting from which this image is derived is entitled Our Lady of Graces by Pietro Perugino (1448-1523), an Italian Renaissance painter of the Umbrian school, and is located in the Cathedral of San Lorenzo [St. Lawrence], in Perugia, Italy. + Front Image Credit (Madonna): Detail extracted from an undivided back Italian postcard (1901-1907), “Ricordo del Cinquantesimo dell’incoronazione di Maria SS. Delle Grazie che si venera nella Cattedrale di Perugia: Settembre 1855-1905,” that is, “Commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the crowning of Holy Mary of the Graces which is venerated in the Cathedral of Perugia: September 1855-1905,” published in chromolithography by P. Casetti & Co., Rome, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera. In 1855, the original painting was encased in a protective wooden tabernacle in the NeoGothic style where it remains today on the third pillar of the nave to the right from the Cathedral’s entrance. + The text on the back of the ornament is a translation from the Latin of the refrain of a 16th-century sacred Christmas carol.