Homily: Thursday of the 1st Week in Ordinary Time - Meaning of Ordinary Time

Now that the Christmas season is ended, we enter into a few weeks of Ordinary time before Lent beginning on Ash Wednesday, March 5

During Ordinary time we focus on our day-to-day discipleship of Christ.  It often feels strange to be wearing the color green for ordinary time during the middle of winter, with bare trees and the grey skies; oftentimes we are covered with a few inches or feet of snow.

It feels strange because the color green usually symbolizes the color of fresh leaves and grass, the color of life, it symbolizes growth, and vitality, and hope.

Whenever the theological virtue hope was depicted in paintings, she could easily be identified because she would be the lady in the green garments. 

Green during Ordinary Time is to remind us Christians that we should be working hard on spiritual growth during this time.

The season is called Ordinary Time, but it should really be called Ordered Time.  The word ordinary, has taken on the meaning of something that is boring, commonplace, mundane.

But this season is really about being ordered, orderly, regiment, and consistent in our spiritual lives. Consistent in our daily prayer, making sure that we pray EVERY day; regimented in our generosity and kindness towards those in need; steady in our daily imitation of Jesus, and continuous to being challenged to growing in holiness.

I mentioned that this is also a season of hope.  There’s another word which isn’t always used in a Christian context.  We often say things like I hope to see you again, I hope the browns do better next season, I hope you recover from your illness.  Christian hope, isn’t so much directed on good things we want to receive in this life, but preparing us for eternal life in heaven.  The person with true Christian hope remember that we aren’t just meant for this life, but that every day we need to be preparing for heaven: through prayer, generosity, self-sacrifice.

Sometimes, as it did for the people of Israel in the first reading, hope, means allowing our defeats to remind us that we are supposed to be focused on God’s will, not our own.

For in the end, this season is about growing in Christian discipleship—focusing day-by-day on being more faithful to the life Jesus calls us, imitating his attitudes, his actions, his love.