Having celebrated the Advent and Christmas Seasons with their many bright feasts, the Church has now returned to “Ordinary Time.” The word “ordinary” has its roots in the word “ordinal”, as in “ordinal number.” We call this “Ordinary Time” because we count the weeks after Epiphany. Today is the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, or the Second Sunday after Epiphany.
When I googled the definition of “ordinary” it read, “uninteresting; commonplace.” While the Church does not use this term in that sense in designating “Ordinary Time,” I believe that it is in the “uninteresting” and “commonplace” times in our lives that we live out our faith. We do not live out our faith on the mountaintops of great feasts like Christmas, but rather in the valleys of our ordinary lives. We do so in the small ways we relate to others in our daily lives, whether they be family members, co-workers, neighbors, or strangers. We live our faith by speaking words of hope and encouragement to others, and by standing up for the just treatment of all people. We make prayer, fasting, almsgiving, the celebration of the Eucharist and spiritual reading “commonplace” in our lives. Just as spouses build their relationships through the small things they do for each other, so do we build our relationship with God. That is how we come to live extraordinary lives.
Blessings,
Fr. Ron