As we turn the calendar page to June, we enter fully into the church season of Ordinary Time. Marked by the color green, Ordinary Time is, in my mind, symbolized by an old-growth deciduous tree. While the spring and fall bring dramatic changes in color, and the winter brings barren branches, Ordinary Time’s summer branches are filled with the constant green that covers hills and lawns as far as the eyes can see.
In the summertime, when everything seems to be the same shade of green, it is easy to forget that the trees are growing. The leaves are doing their work to gather air and sunlight. The roots, unseen, are doing their work to gather water, and the trees are using that air and water and sunlight to grow a little taller, to send roots out a little deeper, to extend the canopy of shade a little broader.
Ordinary Time is like that for the church, too. While the seasons that come before and after are marked by changing colors and high holy days, Ordinary Time is, well, ordinary. Like the trees, we get to spend this ordinary time together, unhurried by the festivity of holidays, unbothered with the stresses of the schoolyear. Instead, we have the opportunity to be nourished by our being together. During this time of year, our faith has the chance to send its roots deeper and its branches broader, growing a little here and a little there, until one day, we look back, and realize that all the time spent growing in Ordinary Time has made our faith, slowly and deliberately, strong like one of those green old-growth trees, sturdy on the mountainside.