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…