“Besides the times of the year that have their own distinctive character, there remains in the yearly cycle 33 or 34 weeks in which no particular aspect of the mystery of Christ is celebrated, but rather the mystery of Christ itself is honored in its fullness, especially on Sundays. This. Is known as ordinary time (Universal Norms, 43).
Ordinary Time begins on Monday, January 13, and continues through Tuesday, March 4, the day before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. It will resume when the Easter season ends on Monday, June 9, the day following Pentecost.
There should be no such thing as ordinary time for us as Christians because we should always be seeking God's desire for our time. We cannot speak of ordinary time without speaking of Sunday. Every seven-day celebration of the Lord’s Day is the basic structure upon which the church year is built. The great liturgical seasons of advent and Christmas and lent and Easter are more expansive celebrations of particular aspects of the one mystery which we celebrate every Sunday. These special seasons focus our attention upon critical dimensions of one mystery, a mystery so overwhelming that we are compelled to separate out its various elements for particular attention.
These seasons in no way minimize the critical importance of this Sunday celebration throughout the rest of the year. Ordinary time is not very ordinary at all. Ordinary time, the celebration of Sunday, is the identifying mark of the Christian community which comes together, remembering that on the first day of the week the Lord of life was raised up and creation came at last to completion. Sunday is a day of play and worship and is a sacrament of redeemed time. How we live on Sunday proclaims to the world what we believe about redeeming time now and forever.
What happens in our churches every Sunday is the fruit of our week. What happens as the fruit of the week past is the beginning of the week to come. So, there is nothing ordinary at all about this. Sunday is the fabric of the Christian way of life. Do you want to thrive in 2025? Return on Sundays and bring the Lord’s Day into your life!
God Bless,
