"Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer…" These hit lyrics, introduced by Nat King Cole in 1963, are not the definition of our summer liturgical experience. While we may not experience the rituals and festivities of the other seasons, Ordinary Time II offers us "the wisdom of routine", as Joan Chittister, OSB, calls the chapter on this season in her book entitled The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life. In this chapter, Sr. Joan writes that "[i]t is what we do routinely, not what we do rarely, that delineates the character of a person” (page 183). Ordinary Time provides us with the opportunity to extend the messages of the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter into our regular, daily life; we have the time to work out what being a Catholic Christian, a follower of Jesus, really means. This isn’t lazy, hazy or crazy at all! It’s hard work, and we can approach it knowing that we have the Holy Spirit, whose coming to us we celebrated on the feast of Pentecost, to guide and support us.

Mini Reflection: What’s so special about Pentecost that it wasn’t until this moment — and not any of the equally world-changing moments that came in the weeks before it — that the Apostles became the Church? Leaving the Room

I was a full-grown adult before I realized that Pentecost is known as “the birthday of the Church,” and it only resonated with me because someone showed up to a church function with cake and candles. Leave it to buttercream frosting to drive home a theological reality I had been missing for 25 years.

The famous 20th century St. Padre Pio said once that he would wait outside the gates of heaven until the people in his life had entered. I’m not sure that I, or frankly many people I know, would say that and mean it. Yet that is precisely the kind of attitude we see in Jesus as he prays for us in the Gospel today. Having celebrated the Ascension of the Lord just a few days ago, we now hear the Son of God at the Last Supper pray to his Father “that they may be brought to perfection as one” (John 17:23). What does this mean for us?

Mini Reflection: I think of the walls of heavenly Jerusalem, so high and so sturdy, guarded so scrupulously by God’s strongest angels. These walls are not barriers. They are shields. They are arms, encircling us, gathering us in.

My Peace I Give to You

When John has a vision of heavenly Jerusalem, he sees walls. “A massive, high wall,” to be more precise. In the modern lexicon, walls have a negative connotation; we use them as metaphors for all that is exclusionary and rigid.

Lent 2025 is now complete and we celebrate the joyful season of Easter. Alleluia! The Easter season lasts for fifty days, ending on Pentecost Sunday, June 8, 2025. The first week after Easter Sunday is called the Octave of Easter; the second Sunday of Easter is named Divine Mercy Sunday. On the Sundays of the Easter season, all of the first readings at Mass are from the Acts of the Apostles, rather than from the Old Testament, which is the usual source of the first readings on Sundays. The second readings this year are all from the Book of Revelation and the gospel readings are from the Gospel of St. John. Contemporary Catholics often find the Book of Revelation difficult to understand. You will find a brief explanation/summary of this highly symbolic book on the US Bishops’ website at https://bible.usccb.org/bible/revelation/0. For a somewhat longer and more detailed summary, you can go to the St. Mary’s Press website at https://bit.ly/SMPRevelation. The Book of Revelation reading on the Seventh Sunday of Easter, June 1, ends with the words “Come, Lord Jesus!”, words that we Catholics pray in earnest every day of the year.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Truly Risen!

Dear Friends in Christ, we have completed our 40-day journey and we find ourselves looking joyfully into an empty tomb. We began our Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday and find its fulfillment here on, Easter! Throughout our journey we challenged ourselves to search and find all the brokenness and weakness of our lives, all that would distract us from being true disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Sunday liturgies of the season of Lent offer us much material for reflection. For starters, the first Sunday of Lent always has the gospel reading about Jesus being tempted by the devil in the desert. This year’s version (there are three versions, one each from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke) is from the Gospel of Luke and outlines the three temptations from the devil we are accustomed to hearing: 1) “command this stone to become bread”, 2) “worship me” and “I will give you this power and glory”, and 3) “if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here…” Jesus did not succumb to these temptations; instead, he used Scripture to refute the devil. Interestingly, the gospel concludes with the sentence: “When the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time” (italics added). If the devil was going to tempt Jesus again, what will the devil do to us…and how will we respond?

Ordinary Time begins on Monday, January 13 and ends on Mardi Gras, the day before Ash Wednesday (March 5). This is the first season of Ordinary Time during the Liturgical Year; the second begins after Pentecost and lasts until Advent. Ordinary Time is not called this because it is lacking pizzaz or something special. It is so-called because it has a numerical, an ordinal, base; its Sundays are counted, as in the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (January 19), etc. During Ordinary Time, we walk with Jesus as he ministers to the people of this time, healing, forgiving, welcoming those around him and we hear his call to us to do the same today. Joan Chittister, OSB, in her 2009 book The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life, says that “Ordinary Time translates the life of Jesus into the very marrow of life itself” (p. 29). Ordinary Time is about the reality of Jesus’ life and our life as his followers…day by day, action by action.

December 1, 2024 is the First Sunday of Advent as well as the first day of a new liturgical year, Year C. We will hear from Luke’s gospel most of the Sundays during this new liturgical year. Luke’s primary audience was most probably Gentiles, or non-Jews; his primary message was one of God’s acceptance of and salvation for the poor, the outcast or marginalized, and the lowly. You can read about Luke’s gospel at the US Bishops’ website, bit.ly/BishopsLuke. You can also watch two videos about this gospel produced by the Bible Project; Part One: bit.ly/LukePartOne, and Part Two: bit.ly/LukePartTwo.

This month of November brings us to the end of liturgical Ordinary Time; we begin the season of Advent, and a new liturgical year, on December 1st. The readings of the first Sunday of November, November 3, remind us that we are to love God and love our neighbor; these are the two greatest commandments. The following week, November 10, Jesus compares the monetary contribution of the poor woman, the widow’s mite, as it is sometimes called, to the monetary contributions made by the rich, saying that the poor woman gave all that she had while the rich have contributed from their surplus wealth. A challenging message for many of us! The next Sunday, the thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, with its apocalyptic readings from the Book of Daniel and the gospel of Mark, focuses our attention on the end times; only God knows when the end will come, we are told. Finally, we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King on November 24; this is the final Sunday of the current liturgical year. We remember that our King, Jesus, is the ruler of the entire universe, all of creation; he is thus not like other kings that the world has known. You can prepare for the Sunday readings at liturgy.slu.edu/.