Not so ordinary after all…

The great feasts are over…Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity, Corpus Christ. Liturgically it’s a bit like Fourth of July when the fireworks disappear from the night sky. We enter Ordinary Time. Lush green appears on our vestments, and in our summer fields. It’s the growing time in the North Temperate Zone. Summer is here and the fields are lush with new life.

Truly, this mirrors our grace-lives liturgically. All the wonders of an unspeakable love have been shown to us, and now it is quiet. In the fields of our hearts much unseen will be going on. The texts will be calling forth growth from the great Mysteries. New life, new growth, new challenges to our cranky old ego with its blaming-shaming-complaining-whining-worrying-withdrawing ways. Oh, yes…our egoism has a voice. We can listen for it. Three ugly sisters, and three feverish brothers. They need to be put to ‘bed’ and get a good long healing ‘sleep.’

In their place we welcome joy, cultivate constant prayer, and give thanks, even for what we cannot understand. Then, surprise…! The rich humble earth of our hearts will show new growth! It will appear unbidden…surprising even us. Yes, it is Ordinary Time…but our lives in God are not so ordinary after all.

Holy One,

You have left the scene…or so you have said.

But then you have said too, that you will be with us always.

So you must take your heaven with you wherever you choose to be.

Help me to remember that, when the days are dark…

when the news is bad, when the violence rises, when the virus sweeps away dear ones.

No hair falls from our heads without your knowledge.

Then like that ugly stuff out in the fields, so smelly,

You turn the manure of our lives into marvelous growth and rich food.

Help us to see beyond the darkness, and hear beyond the noise.

Let us hear your voice, Shepherd.

The ‘Ordinary’ Way

St. Augustine (in the Office of Readings) reminds us that there are two ‘times’ during the Liturgical Year: the time before Easter and the time after Easter. These two times reflect the ‘Paschal Mystery’ in our lives. The time before Easter is a time of struggle and penance in faith; the time after Easter is a time of unbounded joy and hope in the promise of our future.

So now we have celebrated the ‘big’ feasts. The Lord has risen and ascended, taking our humble transformed humanness with him to the throne of his Father. They have sent their common Spirit-Gift. The Spirit now dwells and burns like a holy Fire in the midst of the Church. What has Jesus been teaching them - and us - during this precious ‘time after Easter?’

He has been teaching us ‘Now you see me, now you don’t.’ He appears when they are together, especially at meals. Then he is gone, breaking the pattern of his former time with them. In former times he was always visible to them. Now he isn’t. So – he is teaching them that there is now going to be a new ‘ordinary’ way of his presence. He is telling them, and us, that we will need to learn to use our faith to ‘see’ him in a new way. Yes, he has returned to his Father, but no, he has not really left at all. The ordinary way is going to be faith’s way of knowing where to look.

Our coming feasts hold a clue. We will celebrate the Most Holy Trinity, The Body of Christ, and the Heart of Jesus and his mother, Mary. There you have it. That’s where to look. We live, and move, and have our being in the Triune Mystery (like fish in the sea, says Catherine). We are nourished by his very Body and Blood to keep us ‘becoming what we eat.’ And we will find him in our own hearts and in the hearts of others – a way of saying that he will be looking at us out of  our deepest love relations.

So we have our challenge before us: we will need to intentionally look for him…around us, in the Breaking of the Bread, in our own deepest heart, and in the hearts of loving people all around us. We will need to see past his disguises…it’s now the ‘ordinary’ way.

You don’t fool me, Lord.

Unless, that is, I let myself be fooled.

I am bonded to you as Word in the Triune Mystery –

where you have carried my very own DNA.

You feed me with your risen self…in your new humanness.

Each time, you kiss me into my own transformation, inch by inch.

And, wonder of wonders, you tell me to look into my own heart –

guilt-laden, selfish, greedy, and egotistic – where you make your home, poor stable that it is.

You haven’t gone anywhere, have you.

You’ve just given us your presence

the ‘ordinary’ way…

“We shall always be with the Lord.” 1 Thess 4:17

This is to be the new normal…after the resurrection, that is. There will be no usual physical presence, but the Risen One has found a way to be with us always. His presence is a realized hope in faith’s dark light.

Pope Francis points out that this hope of our is communal. It is a ‘we.’ It is ours together. But if faith’s light is so dark, how are we going to know that this Risen One, who now is present in a new way in the depths of our hearts, is there? Is there some evidence we can point to? Some assurance?

Francis says the Holy Spirit is the living sign of God’s hope. With Jesus we have a picture…we have a human form, but with the Spirit…? As Jesus is God’s Word in our human form, so the Spirit is God’ ‘hands.’ Seven beautiful scriptural images come to mind: Dove, Fire, Wind, Water, Oil, Blood, and Wine. Wherever they appear, there is Spirit-work going on. God is acting.

So we can be on the watch in our own humble lives: these seven translate into comforting, calming, energizing, cauterizing, moving, cooling, cleansing, refreshing, soothing, easing, life-giving, intoxicating…and yes, they weave in and out of our ordinary days. The Word helps us to know.The Spirit helps us to be and do. And there is our evidence. By the fruits you will know. The Risen One has pledged to be always with us…now, in this Ordinary Time, we can try to live the pledge, “We shall always be with te Lord.”