'ORDINARY TIME'

For most of us there are times of excitement and celebration, followed by long periods of the humdrum routine of our daily lives.   The festivities of Christmastide have ended, the decorations have been removed and life has returned to ‘normal.’  Children and teachers, for example, have gone back to school.

The prayer-life of the church –the liturgy –reflects this rhythm of preparation for celebration, then the celebration itself, and this is followed by a long period when nothing dramatic seems to happen.  Advent and Lent prepare us for the celebration of the birthday of our saviour and for the Paschal Mystery of his death and resurrection.  

These festivals are followed by what is known as ‘Ordinary Time.’   That has just begun, now that we’ve completed Christmastide.

‘Ordinary Time’ sounds dull and unimportant.  Dull it may be, unimportant certainly not.   To think that, would mean that most of our time didn’t really matter, because it’s so bland and routine, with our seeming to achieve nothing spectacular.

But let’s remember that was true of Jesus’ short life.   For about thirty of his roughly thirty three years He shared the same life as any working-class person in the provincial town of Nazareth.  During those long years of ‘Ordinary Time’ Jesus did nothing dramatic. He blended so well into the local scene that His neighbours resented Him as an upstart, when He started preaching –telling them how to live. Who did He think He was?  After all, He was only the son of Joseph, the carpenter. They thought He needed to be cut down to size –their size.

But for about thirty years His life was as bland and ordinary as His neighbours’.  He did  not stand out from the crowd. And yet that time was not wasted.  During those years of his ‘hidden life’ Jesus grew from childhood to becoming a mature adult.  He learnt about his Jewish faith and experienced what it meant to be human.  Like any child, He discovered the wonder of the world in which He lived.   He would draw on all that experience when He began to preach. He used His personal knowledge of sowing and reaping, losing and finding, of celebrating a marriage to show us what the Kingdom of God was like.

And yet it was in this routine of domestic and working life that Jesus expressed His love for His heavenly Father and for the people around Him.  That was how He served God and did His will during those thirty years.  For Him ‘Ordinary Time’ was sacred time.

The same should be true for us.  Certainly we welcome and even need the highlights of holidays, the first enthusiasm of falling in love or joining the Dominicans. But none of us could sustain such a high pitch. The true commitment of love is revealed in our having the stamina for the long haul. In fact a life-long commitment is like a marathon or cross-country race, which starts with a dash and a flourish and then settles down to a steady, undramatic pace, mile after mile, or year after year –a pace we can sustain. 

That’s very true of family life, which, for the most part, is very prosaic, with nothing sensational happening. But it’s in the bland routine of family or community life that we express our love for each other –in cooking the meals, washing the dishes and cleaning the house. That’s the very bread and butter of love! To grasp that demands great imagination and effort.

And while the work of a priest is very worthwhile, much of it can be extremely dull. That’s very true of hearing confessions for hours on end. And rarely do we get the satisfaction of seeing our sermons bear fruit. We have to do the spade work and leave the harvesting to God, who acts in His own time and way –not ours.

But it’s precisely in the routine of our daily lives that God approaches us and we draw close to Him. We don’t need to do anything sensational to express our love for God and each other. And for most of the time God shows His love and care for us within the normal framework of the rhythm of our daily lives. He doesn’t need always to be performing miracles!  And yet even the trivial and mundane have eternal value when blessed by God. Our constancy in loving service lies in the bland routine of our daily lives –that’s what really matters.  That’s what makes our ‘Ordinary Time’ sacred time.

During the ‘Ordinary Time’ of the liturgy we have continuous readings from one of the Synoptic Gospels –Matthew, Mark and Luke.  On Sunday we will start reflecting on Mark’s Gospel.  His insights about Christ and His teaching should help to deepen our understanding of what it means for us to be real Christians.   That should assist us in transforming our dull, prosaic ‘Ordinary Time’ into sacred time.    That is where we will meet God. That is where He will seek us and we will find Him.

May your ‘Ordinary Time’ be filled with God’s blessing and become ‘Sacred Time!

 Isidore O.P.

Next week (not in a fortnight's time) Fr. Peter will reflect on a "Forlorn Shelf-life."