Nothing Ordinary about Ordinary Time.

"Ordinary Time" or season "After Pentecost" 

The Church Calendar depicts the year in a cycle representing the life of Jesus on earth. It starts with Advent, flows into the Christmas Season, moves quickly through a short Ordinary Time and then into Lent. Lent culminates with Easter Time which ends on Trinity Sunday. Then we pick back up with an extended Ordinary Time. The term ordinary might be taken in the context of normal, mundane, or general with nothing much going on. However, it is anything but ordinary. This time in the Church Calendar represents Jesus’ everyday life during his three year ministry of spreading the Good News, preaching, healing, telling us who the Father is. (maybe why the Mass readings are divided into three year cycle A, B, C?) This is not ordinary, it is extra-ordinary!


This is the living out of the promises coming from the covenants of the Old Testament. The Christ has come and is living among His people. He has arrived to do the work of salvation. First, however, He wants to tell us what is about to happen and set the stage for God's ultimate entrance into human history.


Each day Jesus set out by foot crisscrossing the very landscape where much of the Old Testament took place. Unknown to even the apostles, He was laying the foundation of His Church before their eyes. He taught them how to pray, He explained the meaning of the scriptures, He pointed out the hypocrisy of the leaders of the people and how the law had become more important to some than God. He was perfecting the Old Law and putting it in proper perspective. He taught Charity to others and love of enemies. Later He gave new meaning to their observance of the Passover, and brought it all together with His Resurrection and sending of the Holy Spirit. He gave the disciples the example to follow, then commanded them to go and teach as He did. 


If we were to use the first three mysteries of the rosary as reflections on the life of Jesus on earth, we would only see the events of Advent/Christmas, Lent/Passion, and Resurrection/ Ascending into Heaven. No wonder John Paul II saw the necessity of instituting the Luminous Mysteries so as to remind us of Jesus' extraordinary time on earth.  A time of illuminating our knowledge of God through Jesus. Not ordinary at all.  POC. Bob, OFS