Extraordinary

Pastor’s Epistle—May, A.D. 2016 C

Things are calming down in our congregation, though I doubt that anyone would notice this at first glance. May brings to us a delightful assortment of holidays, both secular and religious. May Day celebrates the full flowering of spring at long last. Cinco de Mayo commemorates a battle south of the border that secured Union victory in our own Civil War. The Easter season ends with a flourish, as we celebrate Ascension vespers on the fifth and Pentecost with Confirmation on the fifteenth. Then of course we have a quilt blessing on Mother’s Day, saints from Alcuin and Bede to Joseph and Brendan, and it all wraps up with the Visitation at the very end of the month.

But this activity represents a transition in the Church’s liturgy from the “festal” half of the year to the “ordinary” half of the year. After Pentecost we enter Ordinary Time, the season of the Church. Our liturgical color turns to green and will remain so with few interruptions all the way to next Advent. Gone are the seasons of breathless anticipation and celebration, the periods of fasting and feasting. Now comes our time of daily living and growing as God’s Church, the Body of Christ in the world. After such powerful seasons as Christmas and Easter, simply enjoying the peaceful worship of the liturgy seems a sweet indulgence.

Of course, Ordinary Time is not so named because it is “ordinary” in the sense of being unremarkable or boring. Ordinary refers to “ordinal,” to the regular numbering of Sundays following Pentecost. Now comes the long season of peace and of sunshine. Now life slows down its annual rhythm, a deep inward breath after so much celebratory exhalation. Fishing opener is coming. Summer vacation is coming. Long evenings with sunsets at 10 p.m. are coming. Thanks be to God.

And people in our community will travel, and take time off, and sun ourselves while we can. This is the natural order of things. Now, more than ever, we are freed to experience worship as its own blessing. The gathering in and sending out of God’s people flows in steady rhythm; it is the slow, even breathing of the Holy Spirit. We needn’t rush. We needn’t plan exhaustively. We may simply come together in peace, to “be still and know that I am God.” Everything we’ve celebrated, everything we’ve commemorated together from September through May, the entire story of God and His people, have led us to this: to ordinary life made extraordinary in the Spirit and Body of Christ.

For some of us summer may be more of a mindset than anything else. Not everyone has opportunity to take time off. Take heart: this too is life, and Christ is with us in it. The Church will be here, as she always is, to gather us in, to forgive us and renew us, feeding us with the Bread of Heaven, then to send us out again, risen and forgiven, to bring new life to a weary world. Welcome to Ordinary Time. Welcome to daily life in Jesus Christ.