GREEN FOR GO!

The celebration of Pentecost marks the end of Eastertide and the entry into the imaginatively named, Ordinary Time of the Year! This means that the green vestments are dusted down and come out once again. Well that’s the theory. And it is true enough most of the time during the week except for the odd feast day now and again. However, on Sunday we are kept waiting a while for the green. You see, Trinity Sunday demands white and now that they have put Corpus Christi on a Sunday instead of its former Thursday, that is also another white Sunday; and just to compound matter SS Peter & Paul are (this year) celebrated on Sunday which demands red. However, there is one Sunday in between when the green shall get a look in. After that it is green all the way to Advent except for the feast of the Assumption and All Saints Day.

You are probably aware already that on Sunday the Church operates a three year cycle, and on weekdays a two year cycle named respectively as: A, B & C and I & II – there goes that over active imagination again! These cycles are mainly to do with the readings which we hear at Mass. It ensures that a greater part of the Gospels are put before us and also the rest of the bible. For instance, I have been told that before the reforms of the Vatican Council II, St Mark’s Gospel was never read at Mass and now he has a whole year to himself (well, that’s not strictly true; his is such a short Gospel that it has to be augmented in the middle of the year {usually around July} with readings from John chapter 6). Year A is dedicated to Matthew, B to Mark and C – yes, you’re ahead of me - to Luke. But what of St John, I hear you ask? Well, he is read every year particularly at Christmas and Easter time. Before the reforms so much of the Bible must never have been heard in church, but now we are familiar with both Old and New Testaments and we have been encouraged to learn about the scriptures. For, as the Church teaches, when the Word of God is proclaimed Christ is made truly present. And, as St Jerome said, ‘Ignorance of the Scripture, is ignorance of Christ.’