Ordinary Time

Christmas Time and Easter Time highlight the central mysteries of the Paschal Mystery, namely, the incarnation, death on the cross, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Sundays and weeks of Ordinary Time, on the other hand, take us through the life of Christ. This is the time of conversion. This is living the life of Christ.

Ordinary Time is a time for growth and maturation, a time in which the mystery of Christ is called to penetrate ever more deeply into history until all things are finally caught up in Christ. The goal, toward which all of history is directed, is represented by the final Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.

While Ordinary Time doesn’t have the same focus on a particular part of Christ’s life as do Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter, these weeks contain their own riches — saints’ feasts, Marian celebrations and Scripture readings that allow us to contemplate the Christ of the Gospels in his humanity and divinity. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops explains:

“The Sundays and weeks of Ordinary Time … take us through the life of Christ. This is the time of conversion. This is living the life of Christ.
“Ordinary Time is a time for growth and maturation, a time in which the mystery of Christ is called to penetrate ever more deeply into history until all things are finally caught up in Christ.”

Ordinary Time marks precious weeks of meditating on Christ’s life — the particular ways he served and loved others, his friendships, the revelation of his identity as Son of God. We would do well to lean into Ordinary Time for growing in intimacy with the Lord, whose life offers us a model for our own.

History of Ordinary Time
In the “General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar,” composed in 1969 with the revision of the liturgical calendar, we can find the vision behind Ordinary Time:

“Besides the times of year that have their own distinctive character, there remain 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 itself is honored in its fullness, especially on Sundays” (43).

Though in English we may be tempted to interpret “ordinary” as synonymous to everyday, common and bland, the origin of “ordinary” suggests a season of “ordered time.” Ordinary Time “is meant to focus on what the extraordinary reality of divine grace can and should do in our ordinary life throughout the year. In Ordinary Time, we focus on how to live out the Paschal Mystery in our day-in, day-out vocation in Christ.” Msgr. Stuart Swetland-president of Donnelly College in Kansas City, Kansas