‘The end of January in the Christian calendar mops up the last vestiges of the Christmas and Epiphany Season, and after the service of Candlemas, in some churches the figures from the Christmas tableau will finally be packed away. Our gaze then moves from the crib to the cross, as the journey from Christmas joins with the journey towards Easter. Before we get there however, there are a few weeks of what is euphemistically called ordinary time.
That word ordinary was much in my mind on January 27 as we commemorated the ordinary people who were very much a part of the extraordinary horrors of the Shoah, the genocidal murder of over 6 million Jewish people and millions of others ordinary people deemed subhuman by the Nazi power regime. Sometimes when we review extraordinary events from the perspective of history, we too easily forget that those involved, both victims and perpetrators, were ordinarily people for the most – just like us.
Over these next few weeks of ordinary time, a number of events will take place, some so taken for granted we often overlook their effect on us and the world around and others much more extraordinary and impactful. The days will slowly brighten, the news buds of spring will break forth, the birdsong more voluble as they return from foreign climes. New ministries, lay and ordained, will begin in our churches, and in the Kingston Area, as the new bishop of Kingston, Bishop Martin, will be consecrated on Candlemas day. Gold will give way to green, and then to purple as we move towards Lent. We will once again hear the call to ordinary people, fisherfolk, tax collectors and sinners, to follow the God made manifest in Christ, on the road and to the cross.
But all that is yet to come, and for now, we enter February still looking to the light that has come to lighten the gentiles “A glory dawns in every dark place, the light of Christ, the fullness of grace”.
