Ordinary Time

Beginning on Sunday, May 23th we will be entering the time of the Church that is commonly called the Pentecost Season, or Ordinary Time and will go on for about 30 weeks.  We call it ordinary because there is no major festival that occurs during this time such as Lent, Easter, Advent, or Christmas.  Ordinary Time makes up most of the Church Year.  And that is how it is in our lives as well.  The ordinary things of life take up more time than the festivals, or the momentous occasions.  Life is made up of going to work, taking the kids to school, preparing meals, paying bills, grocery shopping, and taking the car in for service – all ordinary things.  What is so special about any of this?  And we might say the same about the Ordinary Time of the Church Year.  But our God acts in our lives in very ordinary ways.  He doesn’t come to us with great fanfare, or in visions in the skies but through common, ordinary things like bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, common, ordinary water in Holy Baptism.  He comes to us in ordinary words spoken by the pastor.           

And God chose to act most importantly in another common, ordinary way, through the ordinary birth of Jesus to an ordinary woman, Mary.  And he then graciously chose to save each one of us and the whole world through what seemed like an ordinary death on a cross.  But it was through God acting in this common, material world that He chose to redeem it.  So this summer, as Ordinary Time begins try to think of this as a special time of the Church Year, a time that God will continue to act in your life through common things, giving you His uncommon love and forgiveness.