Every year at this time I have an overwhelming desire to write about “Tempus Per Annum,” what the Church refers to as “Ordinary Time.”
Ordinary Time is sandwiched between celebratory and penitential seasons of the liturgical calendar. And so, our current iteration of it, right after the Christmas Season and right before the Lenten Season, can be a strange time, in that the celebration of the birth of the Christ Child, especially in a year so burdened with unrest, pestilence and chaos, is a great reminder of the peace to be had when we come down out of the hills to greet Our Savior in His manger. We also gaze upon the Virgin Mother, who will know heartache as none other; and we glance just out of the lamplight to feel the quiet, protective presence of Joseph, who got them all to that cave on the outskirts of Bethlehem. And we will soon begin the penitential silence and beauty of Lent. We will soon anticipate in our spiritual cleansings the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah.
The starlight of Christmas has passed, and the contemplation of Easter is anticipated. So, what is this present moment in the life of the Church? It is Ordinary Time – yet anything but plain or routine, commonplace or humdrum.
There are beautiful but unusual connotations to the word ordinary that bear mentioning. As a noun, an “ordinary” can be one who has been ordained and bears authority to perform certain liturgical and ecclesiastical functions. It can also be an order or form for divine service, as in the “Ordinary of the Mass.” “Ordinal” numerals are ones that follow in a sequence or series and express degree or position in an orderly fashion. And of course, there is “Ordinary Time.” All of these particular references harken back to the root word: “order.”
In Ordinary Time we look to each day not linked to any season but in a sequence of days that follow and days that lead up to. Might the Church be asking me to look and see what is before me, the “stuff” of everyday life that holds in it the possibility of sanctity?
A medieval writer referred to it as the “sacrament of the moment.” See the single rose my wife put in a little vase on the windowsill in the kitchen, watch how our dog comforts herself on the lap of any willing family member or friend, pray that the daily activities of our children might hint to them of the glory of the God who holds them in the palm of His hand (whether they know it or not), find the right word for the right person and express it with a smile…or a tear if that is what the situation calls for.
Find the sacred in the profane. Give order to the chaos by recognizing how beauty often resides in the hidden places of our lives. Explore the virtuous and sweetly diminutive steps of St. Therese, the Little Flower. Let St. Anthony of Padua find something for you that you didn’t know you were looking for. Ask St. John Paul II to help you celebrate your own personhood in each sacrament of each moment, even the harsh and difficult ones – especially in the harsh and difficult ones.
If the theme of the season just past is embracing the Child who came into this world to save us, and the theme of the season upcoming is to prepare us for the great miracle of Our Lord’s rising from the dead to His Father’s loving arms, perhaps the theme of the season at our feet is plumbing the depths of God’s love for us in the everyday gifts He puts before us, one right after another.
He is gifting us with family we love so deeply it astounds us. He is gifting us with co-workers and friends who have become “like family” in our growing affection and care for them. He is gifting us in those who might need us, whether we know them or not: the cry of the sick and the poor. He is gifting us with His creation, every leaf and stem, every hillock and dip, every crash of wave and splash of faces. He is gifting us with difficulty and doubt and confusion and anger so that we will surrender more forthrightly to His love and His Presence. He gifts us with Himself for the calling, at any moment of any day in any season.
These are the absolute glories of Ordinary Time. How extraordinary they are! Let us treasure them dearly in this, the season of the “sacrament of the moment.”
Fred Gallagher is an author and editor-in-chief with Gastonia-based Good Will Publishers Inc.