So what exactly is Ordinary Time?

In some ways, Ordinary Time is the Season without a theology.  We have concluded Advent and Christmas.  Advent, the Season where we meditate upon the coming of Christ.  Christmas, we have been contemplating the early life of Jesus, the theology of the gift, creation’s reaction to seeing the human face of God.  In Lent, we prepare for the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord. Easter, the season in which we pray about our salvation, our communion with God, and the depth of God’s love for us.

But what about Ordinary Time?  It seems that the ‘green time’ is a season without a theology. It’s ordinary time—boring, vanilla, blah.

What we so often forget is that most of Jesus’ life on earth was boring, vanilla, blah.  Most of Jesus’ life was not about shepherds, magi, not about certain miracles and healings, not about getting arrested in Jerusalem, hauling his cross and dying.  Most of Jesus’ earthly ministry was boring.

Most of Jesus’ life was ordinary time.

During those months of ministry, Jesus’ life was filled with relatively small moments.  Encountering people, walking with his friends from village to village, late night conversations with people that needed a shoulder to cry on.  Nothing extraordinary, nothing miraculous, nothing worth the Chronicle, but nonetheless, a time of ordinary holiness.  A time where we can enter into Jesus’ life in an extraordinary way.

Most of our life is ordinary time.  Most of our life is not Christmas or Easter, graduating or getting married.  Most of our life is rather mundane—waking up, eating breakfast, checking our email, phone calls, coming home, dinner, repeat.  Most of our life is ordinary time.

It is in the quiet moments—the ordinary moments—where Jesus speaks to us. Yes, we have those extraordinary moments in our lives, the times where we see miracles, the multiplication of loaves and fishes, those times of extraordinary healing and love from God.  But most of the time, our lives with God are ordinary nudges and pushes, invitations to see things with Jesus’ point of view, those little moments where Jesus speaks to us more clearly than any other time.

Hopefully, for many of us, that is where the Christian adventure resides.

Holy Father Dominic, pray for us!