Word to the Wise
Friday, July 30, 2021 - Friday in the 17th Week in Ordinary Time
[Lev 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34b-37 and Matt 13:54-58]These, therefore, are the festivals of the Lord on which you shall proclaim a sacred assembly, and offer as an oblation to the Lord burnt offerings and cereal offerings, sacrifices and libations, as prescribed for each day. [Leviticus]
Although festivals are meant to be a time when we pause in the "regular" schedule to celebrate, it can be quite surprising to look at a calendar and realize how these celebrations can shape the "regular" world. Some of them are religious in nature, such as Christmas and Easter, some of them are secular, such as Memorial Day and Labor Day. The Christmas season alone can determine the fate of "the economy" for a given year!
On top of or at least alongside of this, for us Catholics, there is the liturgical year, which, of course, includes the pivotal celebrations of the Incarnation (Christmas) and Resurrection (Easter) of Jesus as well as "holy days of obligation," which can vary from country to country! In the case of the children of Israel, the liturgical calendar was based on the natural rhythm of crops and weather and integrated with the narrative of creation. Our own date of Easter is determined by the first full moon of Spring, which, in turn, is arbitrarily determined by the Gregorian calendar in March!!
Today, the book of Leviticus tells us of the festivals determined for the children of Israel. Some of these matched similar festivals in surrounding cultures. Others arose out of significant events like the Passover, which celebrates the crossing of the Red Sea.
But life is not lived entirely in festival time. There is the "ordinary time" in which we live and move and have our being day in and day out. God is not absent from the hum-drum of daily living. We may, at times, long for that "ordinary time" when we are exhausted from "celebrating" this, that or the other. Right now, we long for a return to life before the pandemic! Finding God in all of this remains the daily challenge. The calendar is meant to help us in this effort, not to rule our lives. AMEN
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