So much more than Ordinary.

From Safari….

How was your first week of Ordinary Time? What is Ordinary Time? First thoughts might include such words as --- typical, routine, or even mundane. In reality our days are filled with moments of God’s grace penetrating ourlives. The ordinary is the listing of ordinal, or sequential, numbers.

Rather than making a statement about degrees of importance, the term Ordinary Time refers to the order of Sundays in the church year that do not fall into the major liturgical seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, or Easter.

I came across this observation about the beauty and depth of Ordinary Time. The Gospel proclaimed during Ordinary Time give us insight from the teaching, healing and mission of Jesus.

We discover Jesus is about humility rather than pride, vulnerability rather than power. We learn Jesus is about including those on the \ margins of society, and speaking about injustices that arise due to sin. We learn that Jesus is about selfgiving love that is only possible through authentic relationships.

This weekend we are invited to look at our relationship with the Blessed Trinity. The Trinity --- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is a community of love. There is no mine and yours. In the gospels we have heard Jesus say to the disciples,

“The Spirit will give you from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine.” This Divine love is so deep that it needed to be shared. God’s love is shared with us. Paul, in writing to the Romans, shares that the love of God has been poured into our hearts. We have heard Jesus say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit want to share all truth with us.

In Jesus, the word made flesh we discover a God who is approachable. Jesus shared in our human experiences of joy and pain. In confidence we come knowing that God understands the struggles of human life. He knows what it feels like to be happy, to be loved and accepted, to be betrayed, feel angry, rejected, frustrated, or heart sick.

Capturing the richness of the Trinity is a lifetime challenge. I like this story --- an elephant is enjoying a leisurely dip in a pool. A mouse comes along and insists that the elephant come out of the water. “I won’t” says the elephant. “I insist you get out this minute”, said the mouse. “Why?” “I will tell you when you come out.” “Then I will not get out!” But finally just to quiet the nagging of the mouse, the elephant gets out and stands next to the mouse. The water dripping from the elephant nearly drowns the mouse. “Now then,” the elephant says, “why did you want me to get out of the pool?” The mouse responds, “To check if you were wearing my swimming trunks.” The moral of the story: An elephant will sooner fit into the trunks of a mouse than God will fit into our notions of God.

Our baptisms draw us into the mystery of the Trinity. The feast of the Trinity reminds us that our actions of love or apathy, peace or violence, impact the world. The life I touch will touch another and that person another, and still another. I may be surprised to see how far away my touch has gone. Our lives are linked; none of us lives as an Island. What impact do your words and deeds have? How does your life help another experience the Blessed Trinity?

Fr. Ron