Besides the special liturgical seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter, the Church celebrates several weeks of Ordinary Time. This time is called ordinary because the days and weeks follow a specific order or schedule.
The focus of the 33 or 34 weeks of Ordinary Time is not on extraordinary seasons and holidays, but on the entire life of Christ, on the ordinary holiness of Sunday, and on the Eucharist.
Catholics journey through Ordinary Time, growing closer to Jesus every day as they listen to, meditate on, and celebrate his life and teachings with the help of Bible readings that are carefully collected and organized into cycles.
Making up the bulk of the Church’s liturgical year, Ordinary Time reminds Catholics that the regular work of a Christian is perpetual worship of God, consistent evangelization, and regular support for the poor and vulnerable.
The numbered weeks of Ordinary Time are divided into two parts by the extraordinary seasons of the Church’s liturgical calendar.
The first, shorter part of Ordinary Time runs from end of the Christmas Season until Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. The longer portion of Ordinary Time begins after Pentecost and continues through the summer, all the way until Advent.
Symbolizing life, growth, and hope, during Ordinary Time the priest’s vestments and the altar cloths are the liturgical color of green.
Ordinary Time is a special time:
Ordinary Time is not common or mundane:
Ordinary Time is time with a plan:
Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple area and to breaking bread in their homes. They ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart, praising God and enjoying favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Acts 2: 46-47
Allowing Jesus to walk with us throughout the year:
The Lord is revealing Himself to us in our everyday lives:
Be transformed into disciples in the ordinary moments of life:
“Holy Mother Church believes that she should celebrate the saving work of her divine Spouse in a sacred commemoration on certain days throughout the course of the year. Once each week, on the day which she has called the Lord’s Day, she keeps the memory of the Lord’s resurrection. She also celebrates it once every year, together with his blessed Passion, at Easter, that most solemn of all feasts. In the course of the year, moreover, she unfolds the whole mystery of Christ …. Thus recalling the mysteries of the redemption, she opens up to the faithful the riches of her Lord’s powers and merits, so that these are in some way made present in every age; the faithful lay hold of them and are filled with saving grace.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1163
A time to read Sacred Scripture in order and in harmony:
As the Church journeys through time, the reference to Christ’s Resurrection and the weekly recurrence of this solemn memorial help to remind us of the pilgrim and eschatological character of the People of God. Sunday after Sunday the Church moves towards the final “Lord’s Day”, that Sunday which knows no end. The expectation of Christ’s coming is inscribed in the very mystery of the Church and is evidenced in every Eucharistic celebration. But, with its specific remembrance of the glory of the Risen Christ, the Lord’s Day recalls with greater intensity the future glory of his “return”. This makes Sunday the day on which the Church, showing forth more clearly her identity as “Bride”, anticipates in some sense the eschatological reality of the heavenly Jerusalem. Gathering her children into the Eucharistic assembly and teaching them to wait for the “divine Bridegroom”, she engages in a kind of “exercise of desire”, receiving a foretaste of the joy of the new heavens and new earth, when the holy city, the new Jerusalem, will come down from God, “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”.
Pope John Paul II, Dies Domini, 31 May 1998
This is the time that saints are made:
The green of Ordinary Time represents life and hope:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
A shortcut to Christ:
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