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.
FEAST DAYS
THE PRESENTATION OF THE LORD/CANDLEMAS is an annual feast day that always falls on February 2. Each year on this day we bless the candles that will be used in our liturgical celebrations for the rest of the year (except for the Paschal Candle that is blessed at the Easter Vigil). It has been forty days since Christmas Day! Jesus is presented by Joseph and Mary at the temple to fulfill the law of Moses—to do what is right. They are greeted by the old man Simeon who sees the “light of the gentiles come,” and the aged widow Anna who speaks of the “deliverance of Jerusalem.” Again, even in God’s temple Jesus is presented and accepted as God saving both Jews and gentiles. We come in procession on this Candlemas Day with specially blessed candles and lights to meet Jesus, the light of glory, on whom we are nourished in the Eucharist. Are you transparent enough for God’s glory to shine through you?
THE FEAST OF THE HOLY TRINITY was established for the universal Church by Pope John XXII in 1334. It celebrates our belief in one God in Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God’s self-revelation is more than a theological puzzle or a mere fact; rather, to know God as a Trinity of Persons is to be drawn into a relationship of love which is at the heart of who God is.
THE SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST was first celebrated in 1246 and extended to the universal Church in 1264 by Pope Urban IV due to, at the time, the rare reception of Holy Communion by the faithful and to focus on the presence of Christ in the form of bread and wine. Christ gives us his very body and blood so that we may always remember him and be strengthened to share his message with the world around us. In 1208 Juliana of Retinnes, an Augustinian nun from Belgium, saw a vision of a lunar disk surrounded by rays of dazzling white light. One side of the disk appeared dark, and in her vision she heard God tell her the darkness represented no feast on the calendar to honor the Blessed Sacrament. When her friend James Panteleon became Pope Urban IV, he extended the feast of Corpus Christi to the universal Church. The feast originated at an age when the faithful never shared the blood of Christ at communion, rarely shared even the body of Christ due to penitential practices, but adored the real presence of Christ in the reserved eucharistic host as their vicarious participation in divine life. Today’s calendar combines this medieval feast with the formerly and strangely separate feast of the Blood of Christ into a single celebration. This is one of the solemnities that an Episcopal conference may choose as a holy day of obligation on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday. In the United States this solemnity has been transferred to Sunday.
OTHER NOTES
PELICAN Some Christian art uses the symbol of the pelican. The pelican is a symbol of the redeemer and is found in early Christian art of all kinds. The Pelican was believed to wound itself in order to feed its young with its own blood. In the Medieval hymn by St. Thomas Aquinas “Adoro Te Devote,” Jesus is addressed as the “Pelican of mercy who cleanses us with his own precious blood.” During communion, we remember that we are nourished by the Lord with his own Body and Blood.