From Volume 5, Number 1, Summer 1998

(Extra)Ordinary Time

In the midst of July, pastors of liturgical churches have just about caught their breath. The liturgical marathon that runs from the First Sunday of Advent through Trinity Sunday is now far  behind them. The exhausting memory of the planning, the rehearsing, the writing, the exhortations, the joys and the disappointments have faded. Most of them, in fact, may be on vacation as we go to print. We are in  that quiet zone which the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar calls ordinary time.

 Perhaps that is the problem. The Western church lives too much in ordinary time, whereas the season of the Spirit (the Wild Goose if you will) is anything but ordinary. Dr. Terry  Fullam once observed that the church has been sub-normal for so long that if it ever became normal it would look abnormal. In liturgical terms, we could say that the church has gotten so used to the world's ordinary  ways that if we began to live in the Spirit's ordinary ways that it would look very extraordinary indeed.

 The problem is not universal. It is the First World church, in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand that seems to suffer this ennui. The Two-Thirds world church, with its  poverty, persecution, and general lack of sophistication shows no such languor. It is not that the church in these places is experiencing rapid growth, although the growth is phenomenal. It is not even that  Christians in such areas express deeper conviction, although in many cases they do. But there is a sense of expectation that we seem to lack.

 For example take the curious episode early in the Acts of the Apostles where Peter and John, going to the Temple for afternoon prayers, healed a lame beggar, which created quite a  stir among the worshipers. They took the opportunity to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and were arrested and hauled before the Temple council after a night in jail. They made a bold defense and left the  council in a quandary. The council greatly desired to suppress this proclamation of Jesus, particularly after the part they had played in His arrest and crucifixion. At the same time, the general effect of the  healing of the beggar the day before had caused general rejoicing and praise. In the end they had to be content with issuing stern warnings of future punishment.

 Peter and John returned to their fellowship and reported all that had happened. Their response was to pray -- not surprisingly. It was their prayer that was remarkable. Rather than  pray for protection and deliverance from hostile authorities they prayed for greater boldness to proclaim Jesus -- as if they needed it! Along with boldness, the disciples asked God to continue His actions of  healing, signs and wonders to accompany and validate their proclamation.

 When we read the lives of the Celtic saints we find countless episodes of signs and wonders accompanying the ministry of the saints. So much so that it can become wearying for the  average Western reader. All too often we tend to dismiss this as typical hagiographical enthusiasm combined with the credulity of a simply era. While there is probably exaggeration and certainly some mixture of  previous pagan legends (i.e., St. Bride hanging her cloak on a moonbeam), we in the West dismiss these stories too readily. We have no expectation that God should act in such crude and miraculous ways. After all, He  does not do so in our experience, so why should He have done so then? It is not unlike a theology generally known as "dispensationalism" which posits that all such signs and wonders ended with the apostolic era C a  theology formulated to explain the absence of such divine activity in the church. But dispensationalism (liberal or fundamental) won't wash in the two-thirds world church of today, nor would it in the times of  Ciaran, Brendan, Bride, Colum Cille, and Columbanus.

 There is a wonderful tale of St. Francis of Assisi during his effort to have the Pope approve his community's Rule of Life. That the monks should take a vow of poverty was perfectly  acceptable. But Francis' insistence that the Order should also live by such a standard caused great consternation among the wealthy Orders of the time. The tale tells us that the Pope took Francis through the wealth  of the church in Rome, the jewel-encrusted plate, the great art. Then, referring to the story from Acts cited above (Acts 5:1-6), the Pope turned to his guest and said, See, gentle Francis, no longer can the church  say Silver and gold have I none. In tender humility, Francis replied, This is true my lord Pope, but then no longer can the church say Take up thy bed and walk.

 The Western church is a rich church. Rich not only in land and money, but rich in an accepted and influential place in our society. With such resources we no longer need God's  >conjuring tricks' to accompany our speech. Yet a church which knows its poverty before God, whether in the Third World, or in the excitement of the conversion of the Celtic culture, is more content to tell its  story relying on God's resources.

 The revival of Celtic Christianity in the modern West may, at first glance, may be no more than the romantic yearnings of Christians in a spiritually constricted age. Yet if we are  vulnerable enough, willing to admit that the value of our wealth is less than the ashes we wore on Ash Wednesday, we may well find the season of the Spirit, the long liturgical dry spell after Pentecost, is an  extra-ordinary time indeed.