The liturgical year is a picture of our lives. Most of the time we do not have anything special happening. Our lives being quite ordinary. This liturgical year, we have 33 weeks of Ordinary Time. The readings and the prayers of those Sundays and the weekdays have much for us to absorb and reflect upon. They help us to understand what it means to live an ordinary life. We get insights into the wonder of being an ordinary person living an ordinary life.
At this time of the year, we are in the midst of a busy liturgical season. We have had Lent, Holy Week and Easter. The next stop is Pentecost before we get back to Ordinary Time again. The question I am asking myself is, “What is the liturgical year telling me about my life by having Easter and Pentecost?” What aspects of my life do these feasts represent? Where are the Easter moments or the Pentecost moments of my life?
If we go to the readings and the prayers of these two important seasons, we can learn a lot about our lives.
We start to wake up to some of the wonder in our lives. We become more aware of God’s action in our lives, in our world.
On Easter Sunday we read the story of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. He appeared to many but there was something different about him. Not everyone recognised him straight away. Maybe we are like the disciples in that we do not recognise the Risen Jesus in our lives either.
Every year when Easter comes around, we are celebrating not only the Resurrection of Jesus but also the fact that each of our bodies will also rise from the dead. We will have the same bodies as we have now, but they will be risen bodies, or as St Paul calls them, “spiritual bodies”.
The next step is to remember that our bodies are connected to the whole universe. We need the rest of the universe for light, energy, food, breath, interaction with others by speech, music, etc. We are not going to lose all these connections by moving into death and resurrection. I have no idea how this happens, but it is connected to the fact that the whole of the universe will also be transformed by the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.
God created the universe and continues to create it. It seems strange that annihilation would be the end of the story for the universe created out of love. Everlasting life is for all life.
This is the big story about resurrection. What about the more mundane experiences of resurrection? When do I see or feel the power of resurrection working in my own life, or my community? Healing is a good example of resurrection. When our bodies or our psyches are under stress or have been wounded, where does the power come from that brings us back to health? It is that same power that raised Jesus from the dead. It is the Holy Spirit.
Now we are dealing with Pentecost. Individually and collectively, we are often gifted by the Spirit of God. There may not be tongues of fire or a big rush of wind. But often we have this sense that we need to stop and stand in wonder. We want to stop and look at the sunset, at the baby who is asleep in the pram, or our hearts reach out in compassion to the suffering of the world. In those moments we are being touched by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is very busy.
Sometimes we find ourselves in conversations where there is a lot of energy. We are very enthusiastic and excited which may be unusual for us. Often this can be a sign of the working of the Spirit in our lives. These are Pentecost moments. There may not be tongues of fire, but we can be “fired up” about something. It is good to reflect and pray about such experiences. Let us ask ourselves, “Is God trying to lead me, trying to nudge me into something new and life-giving?”
When we look at these Resurrection or Pentecost moments, we start to see that our ordinary lives are not so ordinary after all. These liturgical seasons help us become more aware of our loving God drawing all of us into a fuller life.
Fr Trevor Trotter
Regional Director of Oceania
rdoceania@columban.org.au
Listen to "From the Director"
Related links
- Read more from the current Columban eBulletin
- Read more from The Far East - May 2021
