Ordinary Time

The Season After Pentecost which begins after Trinity Sunday (today) is sometimes referred to as "ordinary time." It is "ordinary" because the weeks that follow are not associated with a specific liturgical season such as Lent or Epiphany. There are no over-arching themes for these weeks of the Church's year which makes them "ordinary." The liturgical color for the Season After Pentecost is green - and because this season coincides with Spring and Summer in our hemisphere, it has often been connected to growth in the Christian cycle. It is also a long season, lasting until Advent begins again.

Lessons each Sunday focus our attention on our relationship with God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and one another, and on the Church and its mission. As the season often coincides with our vacations, it is also a season where we can reflect on the gift of time God gives to each human life.

Time is something we pretend we are in control of in the post-industrial West. We think about "managing our time," "making good use of our time" and "not wasting time." We are busy people, families and communities. But as much as we feel we are in control of time, time still remains God's, not ours.

Jeremy Taylor, an early anglican divine wrote:

"There is too little time to purchase great wealth, to satisfy the pride of a vain-glorious fool, to trample upon all the enemies of our just or unjust interests; but for the obtaining of virtue, for the purchase of sobriety and modesty, for the acts of religion, God gave us time sufficient."
- Jeremy Taylor The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living (1650)

"Ordinary time" is the perfect time for us to reflect both on how we use time and how we can simply be in time. We are so busy most of the year pretending we control time that we forget that we have allowed time to control us. The slower pace of the summer months gives us times of refreshment - times to "be" rather than "do." I love to just sit on the beach and watch the waves roll in and out in their timeless fashion. As the days lengthen, I find myself more drawn to watching the sunrise or the sunset, to simply sitting still and breathing. I don't have to look for God the way I do when I am flying from task to task, but sitting still and letting the ancient rythyms of the creation envelop me, God finds me. I am easily in touch with the incarnate Jesus who fills my soul without my searching for him. All I have to do is stop managing time and, instead, be in time.

So - I invite you to join me in ordinary time, doing ordinary things and finding the rythym of the holy so close that all we need to do to find it is breathe.

Faithfully,
Elizabeth