“Besides the times of the year that have their own distinctive character, there remains in the yearly cycle thirty-three or thirty- four weeks in which no particular aspect of the mystery of Christ is celebrated, but rather the mystery of Christ himself is honored in its fullness, especially on Sundays. This period is known as Ordinary Time” (Universal Norms, 43).
Wasted time is not something that is valued in American society. After Mass this past Sunday, I saw two people run into others because they had to immediately look at their phone and were not acknowledging the person near them. At the gym today, I was waiting to use a weight machine for more than 20 minutes because the person using it spent more time on her phone than she did doing reps. I finally asked her how much longer she would be and sat and waited so she might realize that there were other people rather than the people she was texting.
We are a people who feel we always have to be connected and are ruled by the clock. Time is money because time is to be filled with purposeful controlled activity which is productive of things which can be sold or things which only concern them. We are convinced that we must be in control of time. The last thing the productive American would want to do is waste time playing around with realities that do not benefit them or their pocketbook.
But the Creator of heaven and earth is described by the scriptures as the original and the best of players. Creative activity is playful, and creative people do not feel that what they do is a job. Creative people also have a sense that their creativity and all that they create are gifts they have received. The Christian can speak of this and the contemplative vision which sees all reality as gift or grace. Our thankful response is what we Catholics would call the Eucharist.
Now that we are in Ordinary Time, we need to speak of Sunday. The seven-day celebration of the Lord’s Day is the basic structure upon which the Church year is built. Seasons like Advent and Christmas focus our attention upon critical dimensions of one mystery which is so overwhelming that we separate out its various elements for specific focus. The focus though is always on Sunday.
Ordinary Time is not very ordinary at all. The celebration of Sunday is the identifying mark of the Christian community which comes together, remembering that on this first day of the week the Lord of Life was raised up and creation came at last to completion. Sunday as a day of play and worship is a sacrament of time redeemed, and how we live Sunday proclaims to our children, our neighbors and our world what we believe about time now and forever.
What happens every Sunday in our churches is the fruit of our week past and the beginning of the week to come. Sunday, like all Sacraments, is simultaneously a point of arrival and departure for Christians on their way to the fullness of the kingdom. There is nothing ordinary about that! It’s time to reclaim Sunday!
God Bless,
