Ordinary? I Think Not!

Each year about this time, I post some variation of this essay on the liturgical season boringly known as “Ordinary Time”. Ordinary? Well, what’s so ordinary about it, anyway?

Christmas is over, all too soon, and we have now entered into a new season of the liturgical year.

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, 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 Christmas and the penitential Lent 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 even prefer “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 Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, and then pick it up again after Pentecost.

This year, Ash Wednesday comes relatively early – 13 February – so we’ll be in Lent before you know it.