Why I love Ordinary Time

Dear Reader,

I promised to discuss Ordinary Time and why I have a deep appreciation for it and hope you do (or will) as well. In order to discuss this, I must set out a few preliminary thoughts about liturgical time and celebrations, reflect on Ordinary Time itself, and finally suggest some thoughts about how our approach to Ordinary Time may well shed light on our spiritual life in general.

What is liturgical time, anyway? Just as the liturgy of the Prayer Book guides us through an entire Mass, so the Church calendar guides us through each year. They both have an ebb and flow that direct us to important elements of our faith and always to the Cross of Christ. The calendar calls us to repent and celebrate, share joy and sorrow, fast and feast. There is an internal logic to the whole thing that calls us to walk again and again through different parts of Our Lord's life and to celebrate the Communion of Saints as well. The calendar does not permit us to skip over important elements of our faith and story.

For example, the calendar does not let us fast forward to Resurrection Sunday, but forces us to leave Maundy Thursday in mourning for Our Lord, and to remain so until the Great Vigil of Easter. I will never forget my first Holy Week as a Wheaton College freshman. Until that Holy Week, I had never properly mourned Our Lord's death, and as a result I had never properly celebrated His resurrection. Walking home that Thursday night in silence was a well overdue punch in the gut. I had no choice but to sit with the reality of Our Lord's death until the acclimation of His Resurrection. This is a gift of liturgical time, and when we follow the calendar year after year we walk with Our Lord, and the Church, from His birth all the way through His Resurrection and Ascension and the birth of the Church at Pentecost.

At this point, one may think that the year is the fundamental unit of liturgical time, but that would be incorrect. The fundamental unit of time is the week, marked by Sunday, the perpetual feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord. In the midst of the Church year, we have many important celebrations, but our chief celebration is the Lord's Day. Ordinary Time is when we remember this truth--that our lives are found in the Resurrection of Our Lord and as such this event is our central celebration.

Imagine that you are painting the liturgical year (warning: this is non technical, and I know what I'm suggesting would actually create a lot of brown, but bear with me) and that the whole background is green for Ordinary Time. This is the normal state (hence, "Ordinary" time, that which is standard, as opposed to something "proper", such as a collect, to a certain day) of Christian worship. On this backdrop one may also paint the Christmas cycle with purple for Advent and White for Christmas and the days following, and the Paschal/Easter cycle with purple for Lent and White for Easter through Ascension Day and of course red for Pentecost and other days of the Spirit and martyrs interspersed. This painting would not work without the Ordinary green background. The Christmas and Easter cycles are proper times that break into Ordinary Time.

So, why do I love Ordinary Time? First, I believe that the Christmas and Easter cycles are more special when we aren't running about trying to make every day a hugely impressive feast day. Sort of the, "if every day's a feast day, no day is a feast day" problem. When we settle into Ordinary Time, we aren't feast-fatigued when it is time for a Principal or Major feast to come along. Second, amidst all of the celebrations of the year, Ordinary Time always calls us back to the main thing--that we live because of the Resurrection. This is fantastically good news which does not require our "jazzing up!" In short, when we love Ordinary Time and live into it, we acknowledge that our lives are rooted in the life of the Resurrected Christ.

Does our approach to Ordinary Time say anything about our spiritual lives as well? I think it does. How often do we give God glory for big things such as healing miracles, but fail to acknowledge His grace in the air that we breath, the strength to live day by day, or the blessings of our families? Anyone can be thankful for an obvious miracle, but it is a deeper thing indeed to praise God for the "small" things of daily live, which in fact are far more grand than we typically imagine.

Only praising God for "big" things is like insisting that every day appear to be a principal feast. May we all give God glory in Ordinary Time, and be content to live the lives with which He so richly blesses us.

Blessings,
David+