Not So Ordinary

The Easter Season has ended, and we’re back in Ordinary Time. Which of course, is not so ordinary at all. For most of the Catholic world, we’ve been in Ordinary Time for a week. Unless, of course, you celebrated the Octave of Pentecost. Which I did. Because, why wouldn’t you?

Full disclosure: the Octave is celebrated in my Monastic Diurnal. I’ve been praying the Sunday psalms for eight days. In my parish, which celebrates the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, while we may or may not have a couple of votive Masses for the Holy Spirit, the Octave technically isn’t celebrated.

I admit I’m confused by the abolition of this particular Octave. Pentecost, along with Easter and Christmas, is one of the three great solemnities of the Church. I mean, the Vigil can be celebrated with four Old Testament readings and accompanying psalms, and on the day itself we sing the glorious sequence. These combine to make it one of the grandest days of the liturgical calendar.

And yet, unlike either Easter or Christmas, there is no longer an Octave. Harrumph.

Now, the liturgical life of the Church does evolve over time. The liturgy had a radical pruning in 1970, and in the process much was lost. However, pruning normally leads to a reflowering, and I have no doubt whatsoever that within the next fifty years this Octave will be restored. But for now, unless you follow the calendar of the Extraordinary Form or one of the religious Orders that still celebrate this Octave, you’re stuck.

So what the heck is Ordinary Time?

This is the time of the year that does not fall into the great seasons of Advent or Christmas, Lent or Easter. Nowadays, this is given the rather uninspired name of “Ordinary Time”.

This is a translation of the Latin term Tempus per annum, which literally means “time through the year”. I’ve heard it also translated as the “Season of the Year”, which isn’t too bad, or even “Ordinal Time”. Fine. But “Ordinary Time” is just so, well, ordinary. There is nothing ordinary about the Christian life!

Perhaps this should remind us that the between the high and low points of our lives, between those key moments, is the ordinary living of our day-to-day lives.

Between the joy of Easter and the sobriety of Advent comes the even keel, our everyday growth in the Christian life.

That idea of growth in the Christian life is why the vestments are green during Ordinary Time.

Because of the way the liturgical year is structured, Ordinary Time is broken into the two distinct periods, the relatively short Ordinary Time following Epiphany, and the much longer Ordinary Time following Pentecost.

Before the liturgical changes of the 1970s, this season was actually two different seasons. I have to say that this makes better sense to me. I would prefer “Time after Epiphany” or even at a stretch “Ordinal Time after Epiphany” to “Ordinary Time”. These decisions are taken at a much higher pay grade than mine, however.

We will remain in Ordinary Time until Advent, and the beginning of the new liturgical year on December 1.