By Deacon Richard Hay
“Anything but an Ordinary Season…”
When we talk about seasons, there are many potential references that we could be talking about. There are seasons for sports, seasons in life, seasons for certain types of food, and of course the seasons for weather – especially here in Florida with the seasons of “Hot, Not so Hot, Soaking Wet, and Tree Pollen season…”
The Catholic church also has its own form of seasons throughout the liturgical year. Our new church year begins with the season of Advent and is our time of preparation for the Lord’s arrival at Christmas and the Christmas season.
We then enter a short period of Ordinary Time – about six weeks or so – before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Lenten Season. Of course, following Lent is the Easter Season which lasts up until Pentecost.
It was after Pentecost that we entered the largest continuous season of the church’s liturgical year – Ordinary Time and counting the six weeks of Ordinary Time between Christmas and Lent – there are seven to eight months of Ordinary Time in our liturgical year which ends in the last half of November.
However, this time is anything but ordinary. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops defines Ordinary Time in our church like this:
“Christmas Time and Easter Time highlight the central mysteries of the Paschal Mystery, namely, the incarnation, death on the cross, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Sundays and weeks of Ordinary Time, on the other hand, take us through the life of Christ. This is the time of conversion. This is living the life of Christ.
Ordinary Time is a time for growth and maturation, a time in which the mystery of Christ is called to penetrate ever more deeply into history until all things are finally caught up in Christ. The goal, toward which all of history is directed, is represented by the final Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.”
During Ordinary Time we are on a daily journey with Christ – we are called to live and grow in our daily lives alongside of Him – just like the Apostles and His disciples did during Christ’s three years of ministry.
Our Sunday readings rotate on a three-year cycle, we refer to them as Year A, Year B, and Year C. This year we are in Year B which means during this period of Ordinary Time, most of our Sunday New Testament readings will come from St. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians and then the gospel readings will be from St. Mark’s gospel. By the time we get to the end of this liturgical year in November, we will have heard almost all of Mark’s gospel.
That continues in today’s readings where we have a gardening theme about potential because they tell the parallels between nurturing the growth of plants in a garden and the flourishing and growth of our own souls.
In a garden, just like our souls, there are three stages of growth.
Planting of the seed (the Word of God), roots and branches grow which provides the ability to soak up nutrients from the earth and receive sunshine from the sky (hearing the Word of God and starting to act on it in our lives), and then bearing fruit (loving God with all our hearts and loving our neighbors – the two greatest commandments).
Those fruits we bear from being nurtured in the Word of God by the Holy Spirit, produce seeds themselves and begin this cycle all over again to grow and bear more fruit for the Kingdom of God. Another parallel to this gardening parable is tied to our lives in the Church – First, that our Faith is the roots; Hope is the branches and leaves; and then Love is the fruit we bear.
I mentioned earlier that we hear a lot about potential in these readings and our gospel has a very familiar parable for our potential as it talks about the Kingdom of God and faith being compared to a mustard seed.
The mustard seed is very small. However, just like all of us, its potential is great. Jesus even says to the Apostles in Matthews gospel, “Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
The average size of a mustard tree fully grown is approximately 20 feet tall with a 20-foot canopy. Just like us, there are some varieties that grow bigger and others which grow smaller, but they all provide fruit and shade so the “birds of the sky can dwell in them.”
Our daily lives, if we live them alongside of Christ in these days of Ordinary Time, can be periods of tremendous growth as we live and receive the fruits of faith.
Have you ever seen a skilled gardener prune plants down to what seems like almost nothing? When my wife Margo used to do this in her garden, I was convinced she had taken things too far and the plant would never recover.
Of course, it always did and that is how the Lord approaches our daily growth in Him – he prunes us throughout our lives. All those situations we encounter in daily life, are in fact, God’s will for us because like the gardener, he wants the best for us, and for Christ, that is to grow in our love for Him so we can produce abundant fruit that leads others to God.
We often question why things happen in our lives, especially the loss of a loved one or some other tragic event. This requires trust in God’s will for us and knowing that he would never do anything to harm us, but I also acknowledge it can be hard to see that sometimes in the moment.
That is why He also gives us grace in our lives through the sacraments and other blessings each day.
I recently listened to a homily by Bishop Robert Barron, and he said something that helps to explain the ups and downs we experience in our faith and daily lives as the Lord prunes and cares for us. He said, “We are stronger when broken because God’s grace heals and strengthens us.”
The final question is this – what is each of us willing to do to make sure we can grow stronger in our faith during this long season of Ordinary Time?
- Are we ready to trust the Lord and His will for us – whatever that might be?
- Are we willing to do what’s necessary to make sure we grow in this season?
- If so, then let’s make that our goal during these extraordinary days of ordinary time and allow the Lord to prune and nurture us so that we may be strengthened and always bear fruit for the Kingdom of God.
