… AAAAAND… we’re back! Just like that, Lent ended, Easter is coming to a close, we’ll celebrate the Feast of the Ascension soon and at Pentecost on June 5th this year, we’ll celebrate the establishment of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. What a gift our liturgical calendar is. As Catholics, we are united with each other all over the globe at all times. The word Catholic comes from the Greek word katholicos… or “universal”. The liturgical calendar of the Church helps us keep track of all those times. It’s one of the many spokes in a great big wheel; a significant piece of the enormous and lovely stained glass window that is the Catholic Church. And just like a stained glass window, if even one small piece of glass is missing, that’s the first thing you notice. It would be easy to take the liturgical calendar for granted, but it would be a mistake.
The liturgical calendar also organizes the readings for Mass; not just for Sundays, but for every day and coincides the readings with the feast days and other celebrations. It’s unitive in that if I go to Mass in Montreal or Paris or Madrid, on any given day, the scriptures read aloud at Mass for that day are the same all over the world. Even if I’m at a Mass that is not in my native language, I can read along because I know what the readings for that day are. I can know that I’m united to the Catholics in France, or Germany or Mexico in both the Eucharist and the scriptures every day… literally. Not only that, the liturgical calendar has those readings organized so that over the course of a three year cycle, the entirety of the Bible is read aloud at Mass. Other ecclesial communities who do not use the liturgical calendar could, and do, skip over whole sections of scripture for any number of what they consider to be good reasons; or sometimes just because they may not be comfortable preaching on a given topic. It would be like getting a love letter and only reading every other line. For faithful Catholics who attend Mass, the liturgical calendar makes that impossible. The love letter is read in its entirety.
Our days are numbered. I don’t mean that in a sense of impending doom (although we all come into this world going out of it), I mean that the Church considers every day so important that a special calendar that orders our time in connection with God’s gifts, has been established so that we remain connected to not just the gifts but to the Giver of the gifts. The celebration of the feast days of the saints, the liturgical seasons of the year and Holy Days of Obligation remind us who we are as children of God and offer opportunities for us to be grateful. My brother Phil says “Every day is a party and every meal is a feast!” Phil is a Feast-Beast. I like that perspective; a joyful reaction to the good things God brings us every day.
That joyful gratitude is the focus, I think, of the upcoming stretch of “Ordinary Time”. Lent got us ready for the gift of Salvation at Easter. By the feast of Pentecost, we will have basked in that Gift for fifty days! We’ve been joyfully grateful for our Salvation… and now, like with all given things, we’re called to share. CS Lewis says that “Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.” The more we give away Jesus, the more of Him we have. It’s no accident that the Church was established at Pentecost and that from there-out, the message of Christ has emanated for over two thousand years. The people gathered that day were from all over but they all heard the Apostles speaking in their own languages. So just like the same scriptures at Mass being read all over the world daily, it’s unitive, and not by accident.
Immediately after that first Easter, the Church was established as an evangelical entity to bring Christ to the world, and that’s what She has done and what She’ll continue to do, … (now here comes the hard part)… through you and me. There, I said it. Yes, YOU are meant to take your Easter gift of Salvation and share it with the world. Its why you received the sacrament of Confirmation; so that you could and would go out and tell the world about Jesus. “To whom much is given, much is required.” Luke 12:48. Eternal life is much. “Go and teach all nations…..”. Scripture is replete with exhortations for us to give away what we’ve been given. “Be not afraid…”, how much more prompting do you need? Seriously? Through the Church, you have the story, you have the Sacraments for strength and nourishment and you have your marching orders directly from scripture. You’ve been given all you need. Now go. There’s nothing ordinary about “Ordinary Time”. It’s meant to be a time of evangelization; our “ordinary” function. Be an evangelist. Jesus didn’t mean that as just a suggestion.
May God continue to guide your head, hands and heart.
Gaudete in Domino Semper!
Carl Calderone
