He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.
Due to publishing deadlines, this is the first column I have written that was not subject to early deadlines due to the holiday printing schedule. Having the opportunity to write in “real time” is another example of the return to routine that we all encounter in these early days of the New Year. We go about doing the things that may be less than exciting but are both necessary and familiar to our lives. The same is true for our life of faith.
As we move on from the high celebrations of the Christmas season we return to the routine of our discipleship. We emulate Jesus Christ as St. Peter describes him in the second reading; “doing good and healing all, for God was with him.” Extraordinary things are done during the holidays by many people. Gifts are purchased, donations are made to the needy, the lonely are visited and joyfulness is lived amid life’s challenges. While these are extraordinary acts in the routine of the secular world, they are routine acts in the extraordinary world of God’s kingdom.
At his baptism, the public ministerial life of Jesus is inaugurated, and the extraordinary acts of his mission become his routine. In our baptism we are called to live extraordinary lives in an ordinary way. As disciples of Christ, we return to our routines and continue to go about doing good things because God is with us, in the extraordinary and the ordinary.
In my Christmas homily, I suggested that we might decide to leave a little reminder of Christmas visible in our homes as we move into the bleakness of winter; a nativity scene, a candle, a decoration. A reminder of the extraordinary birth of God in human flesh, can be a reminder for us not to fall into meaningless routine. In addition, committing ourselves to being faithful to Sunday Mass, is not only an obligation of our baptism, but is the encounter with Jesus that we need to live out our mission as disciples. When we read the gospels we see our Lord amid ordinary life, doing extraordinary things.
During these days of Christmas, we repeatedly referred to the Greek word, “Emmanuel,” which means God is with us. Today, in speaking to the crowd, St. Peter speaks of Jesus doing the extraordinary, “for God was with him.” Emmanuel, God is with us at work, school, making dinner, doing homework, folding laundry and at practice. In the ordinary days, let us do extraordinary things because God is with us.
ORDINARY TIME – As we enter a new church season, I thought it would be helpful to share some catechesis on this liturgical season.
Ordinary Time, the longest season of the Church year, fills the weeks that do not celebrate a specific aspect of the mystery of Christ. It’s the no-particular-reason season. Christmas Time honors the birth of Christ. Easter Time rejoices in the Resurrection. Ordinary Time is devoted to the mystery of Christ in all its aspects.
At first glance, the principles of Ordinary Time seem basic enough. Start counting the weeks after Christmas Time. Break for Lent and Easter. Resume after Pentecost and keep counting until Advent. Basically, that’s how it works. But we have a few quirks. For example, there is no “First Sunday in Ordinary Time”; however, there is a first week. Usually, Christmas Time ends on a Sunday with the Baptism of the Lord. The lectionary also calls it the First Sunday in Ordinary Time, but it is part of Christmas Time. Ordinary Time gets underway on a weekday. When the next Sunday rolls around, we start week two.
On the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, we see the last of Ordinary Time until after Pentecost. Even then, it emerges only on weekdays. Trinity Sunday always follows Pentecost Sunday, and the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord comes the next Sunday in the United States. Therefore, when the numbered Sundays in Ordinary Time return in summer, we start out a little higher than where we left off. Sometimes we skip one or two entire weeks of Ordinary Time during the Easter break. We want to close the Sundays of the year with Christ the King, one week before Advent. Christ the King always falls on the Thirty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. So, we determine the week number after Pentecost not based on where we left off before Lent, but by counting backwards from Christ the King. One or two weeks may disappear, but Ordinary Time still serves the complete mystery of Christ.
Peace!
