Ordinary Time is another name for the long season of the Church Year that stretches from the Feast of Pentecost (this year on May 23) through to the first Sunday of Advent (this year on November 28). The focus of the season is the ordinary Christian life — life lived in the light of the resurrection, in the faith that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. The liturgical color of the season is green.
In the church year, there is no “Part I” and “Part II” to Ordinary Time. But for the sake of planning in a community that realizes that the ordinary includes change, and to keep us on our liturgical toes, we will be dividing this year’s Ordinary Time into four parts.
Part One will be the four Sundays of June. During this time the Arts on Deck series continues on Saturday mornings from 10-12 and the cultivation of the Community Garden continues on Saturdays from 9-11. In our worship on Sunday we will use the Book of Common Prayer. The Advocate will provide plenty of BCPs for every one, but you are invited to bring your own if you have one. There will be three events of note in Ordinary Time, Part One. On Sunday, June 6, soul musician Tim Smith will lead our music at the 5 PM liturgy. On Saturday, June19, two of our own, Roxane Gwyn and Gabe Lamazares, as well as our friend Lauren Kilbourn Gaudette, will be ordained to the Transitional Diaconate at an 11 AM liturgy at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Raleigh. And on Sunday, June 20, the Advocate will hold a homecoming liturgy and picnic at Camp New Hope, with swimming and fellowship beginning at 3 PM and the liturgy at 5. We are hoping to bring together the Advocate Community — past and present — at this event. Please come if you can!
Part Two of Ordinary Time will run through July and August, the Sunday liturgy will be include a Eucharistic Prayer from the Australian Book of Prayer for Worship. It is interesting to note the similarities and the differences. For example, the invivation to the Lord’s Prayer in the BCP rite says, “As our Savior Christ has taught us, we now pray”, and the Australian rite says, “As our saviour Christ has tuaght us we are confident to pray”.
Highlights of OT II will include our first ever Advocate camping trip, July 23-25; our Blue Grass Mass at the Carrboro Century Center on Sunday, August 15; and the Contemplative Prayer retreat, August 20-22.
Part Three of Ordinary Time will run September and October. This will be the season of our Creation Cycle, when our prayers, music and reflection will focus on the good earth that God has given us, and on our call to be wise stewards of all the many resources that we have been given.
Part Four of Ordinary Time will be the first three Sundays of November, beginning with All Saints Sunday on November 7. We will again return to the Book of Common Prayer in our worship, as a way of reminding ourselves of our heritage as Anglicans, and of the way in which our prayer and liturgy shapes who we are and what we believe.
Throughout the Season, we will continue to mark the middle of each week with the Holy Eucharist on Wednesdays at noon and Contemplative Prayer at 6 at the Advocate Office at 403 West Weaver Street. We will also have a Taizé Service the first Friday of each month at 6 PM. And we will continue cultivate the Community Garden, and to work on the Habitat house on Lizzie Lane with the Episcopal and AME churches of Orange County.
We will also begin our Second Sunday Woods Walks following the morning liturgy.
Keep checking the website (TheAdvocateChurch.org) for information on these and other fellowship, worship, and learning events of the Season as they are planned.
The blessing of God,
the eternal goodwill of God,
the shalom of God,
the wildness and the warmth of God,
be among us and between us,
now and always.
Amen.
