If my liturgical calculations are correct, we are now officially fully in “ordinary” time (affectionally known also as “the long green season”) in the church’s year. This makes almost fully one half of the year and will stretch to the celebration of Christ the King at the end of November. Occasionally it is interrupted–in a good way, in my estimation–by a Saint’s Day (cf. St. Luke on October 18), but for the most part we get a continuous string of readings from the Gospel of Mark (and John in late summer) and from the New Testament letters. Personally I’m looking forward to the six or so weeks we are in the Letter to the Ephesians beginning July 12.
Ordinary?
This time after Pentecost (used to be “time after Trinity”) is called “ordinary” time because of the numbers used to count these Sundays after Pentecost: ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.). However, in recent years I’ve been increasingly convinced that the “ordinariness” of the time makes “ordinary” time a quite appropriate name. For it is in the ordinary, daily lives that our faith in Christ and his redeeming work is lived out. It is the everyday, the humdrum, the ordinary that we encounter the God who is beyond our comprehension.
Green!
Green is the color of this new season. In Rublev’s icon of the Visitation of Abraham (above), the angel that suggests the Holy Spirit (right side) is clothed (mostly) in green. For the Holy Spirit is “the Lord, the giver of life,” as we confess in the Creed. And so the color the church has chosen for this time is green: the color of growth and new life. I also love that this time of the church year largely concides with the “green” agricultural seasons. Our garden is in and I look forward each day to seeing new growth.
Blessings to you all this green, ordinary time.