Ordinary Time

The Season after Pentecost encompasses all the Sundays after the Day of Pentecost until the end of the church year. The Day of Pentecost, which falls fifty days after Easter, is when we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit among the apostles, described in Acts 2. On the Day of Pentecost, we celebrate the Holy Spirit, which inspired and empowered the followers of Jesus to do the work of Christ in the world. This long season is also sometimes referred to as Ordinary Time, not because it is mundane, but because we count the Sundays using “ordinal numbers” -Second Sunday after Pentecost, Third Sunday after Pentecost, etc. This is a season for growth, a reminder that the long walk of faith isn’t always highs and lows, but is made up of the stuff of everyday life. The Last Sunday after Pentecost brings us to the end of the church year, then we head into Advent to begin the cycle again.

Year in and year out, we cycle through the church year: from the waiting and anticipation of Advent, to the celebration of Christmas, to the spreading of light at Epiphany, to the contemplation and repentance of Lent, into the extraordinary joy of Easter, and through the long season after Pentecost, the “ordinary time” of our church year.  In all of these seasons we are focused, not on ourselves, but on the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

These different seasons keep us from getting “stuck” in one image of God. In the church year, sometimes we remember and worship and celebrate the baby Jesus born in the manger, and sometimes we remember and worship and celebrate the broken Jesus in the way that is simple and safe for us. Instead, the church year invites us to walk with Jesus through all the moments and seasons of his life-and all the moments and season of ours.

 Themes in the Season After Pentecost

              Each Sunday of these weeks has its own theme, based on the collect, the first reading from the Old Testament or the Acts of the Apostles, and the gospel reading. Like the gospel readings, the epistle readings are sequential during these weeks in order to hear all or most of an entire letter, but they do not always fit with the specific weekly theme set by the gospel. The educator Joseph Russell has identified four general themes you may recognize in the readings and sermons during these weeks:

·       Our relationship with God;

·       Our relationship with Jesus Christ and with one another through our prayers, the sacrements, and life in the body of Christ;

·       The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives;

·       The church and its mission.

From: "Welcome to the Church Year: An Introduction to the Seasons of the Episcopal Church," Vickie K. Black