7th Week of Ordinary Time 2024 - Tuesday - Ordinary Christianity is Extraordinary

 

After five weeks of Lent, Holy Week, the Paschal Triduum, Easter Sunday, seven weeks of Paschaltide, and Pentecost, we’ve returned to Ordinary Time.  We will observe Ordinary Time, from now until the end of the liturgical year in November.  

The major seasons of the liturgical year—Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter—bring with them extraordinary anticipation and preparations and the celebration of extraordinary events—the birth of Christ and his saving death and resurrection.

But let us not forget that in ordinary time, when we are considering the ordinary teachings of Christ throughout his public ministry—the Lord’s ordinary activity is anything but ordinary. 

Jesus Christ is God speaking to us and teaching us. And the words, lessons, and actions of his ordinary public ministry guide us to become extraordinary. The ordinary life of the Christian is extraordinary compared to the ordinary life of the world. 

The ordinary way of the world is broken and Christ offers extraordinary wholeness. The ordinary way of the world is foolish and Christ offers extraordinary wisdom. Left to its own devices, the world ordinarily sinks into chaos, man devolves into tribalism, selfish individualism, warfare over resources. But Christ offers another way—an extraordinary way—of order, unity, and peace. 

Today’s Gospel is a perfect example of the extraordinary way of Christ. The disciples are arguing about who will be first, who will be at the top of the hierarchy. They are arguing about power and status and privilege and greatness. In other words, they are thinking as ordinary human beings do—fighting over power.

But then the Lord illustrates another way—an extraordinary way—he says that true greatness involves becoming like a little child before God—true power involves becoming a servant to every one, being first means becoming last.  Becoming humble and servant-hearted will bring you wholeness, it will make you extraordinary—the sort of extraordinariness that is valued by God and truly longed for by the human heart. And everything else is a waste of time and contributes to the fallenness of the world.

As we transition back to Ordinary Time, we are reminded that the seemingly routine aspects of Jesus' teachings and ministry are profoundly transformative. Although the liturgical year features peaks of spiritual intensity and celebration, it is in the day-to-day application of Christ's teachings where the true extraordinariness of our faith is revealed. Ordinary Time offers us the space to reflect on and integrate the profound lessons of servanthood, humility, and the reversal of worldly values that Jesus espoused. 

These teachings guide us to live lives that starkly contrast with the ordinary ways of the world, providing a path to true greatness and wholeness God desires for us. As we embrace this period of Ordinary Time, let us cherish and apply these extraordinary lessons in our everyday lives, transforming our ordinary existence into an extraordinary journey towards spiritual fulfillment and unity with God for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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That Christians may respond generously to the perpetual call to prayer, fasting, and works of charity. 

For our young people beginning summer vacation, that they may be kept safe from the errors of our culture and kept in close friendship with Jesus through prayer and acts of mercy.

That during this month of May, all people may turn their hearts to the Blessed Virgin Mary, seeking her aid and imploring her intercession with increased and fervent devotion, imitating her example of Faith, Hope, and Love.

For all the needs of the sick and the suffering, the homebound, those in nursing homes and hospitals, the underemployed and unemployed, immigrants and refugees, victims of natural disaster, war, and terrorism, for all those who grieve the loss of a loved one, and those who will die today, for their comfort, and the consolation of their families.

For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.

Incline your merciful ear to our prayers, we ask, O Lord, and listen in kindness to the supplications of those who call on you. Through Christ our Lord

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023 - Extraordinary Time

 

The Christmas season has ended, and we’ve returned to the observance of Ordinary Time. Each of the seasons of the Church year certainly has its own spirituality and themes—a rhythm that is to mark our lives.

During Advent, the church prepares for the coming of Christ and during Advent we are to become quieter, more reflective, meditative like a mother anticipating the birth of her child, like Blessed Mary anticipating the birth of her son. During Christmas of course we celebrate Christ’s birth with hymns of praise. We give gifts, we gather with family and friends in a spirit of cheer and generosity, always with an eye to the needs of the poor whose condition Christ shared—born into the straw poverty of the Bethlehem stable. 

Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday, February 22nd this year, is a season of intensified prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and concrete acts of penance; we unite ourselves to Jesus in the desert, his Passion and suffering on the cross, and we meditate on his great love for us throughout all that he suffered.

Then during Easter, of course we celebrate the Resurrection; we focus on courageously proclaiming that Christ is risen, alleluia, and breaking the bonds of all that keeps us from proclaiming and living Christ’s victory over sin and death.

But now we find ourselves once again in Ordinary Time. And during ordinary time we focus on the ordinary life of the Christian. But that’s not boring or unnoteworthy. There is holiness to be found and practiced in the ordinary dimensions of life. There is holiness to be found in cooking and cleaning and conversations and working and resting and family life and visits to the grocery and hardware stores and the doctor’s office and civic life, in aches and pains, and successes and failures. There is holiness to be found and practiced in everyday life, in ordinary day-to-day life. 

Our Christian faith makes the life of the ordinary Christian extraordinary in a number of ways.

Firstly, unlike those without faith, Christians live conscious of God of with us throughout all of life. We celebrated at Christmas—that Christ is Emmanuel—God-with-us. And He is. He is with us in our trials, in our sufferings, in our poverty, in our fears, in failures, and in the ordinary. That gives us extraordinary and supernatural consolation, comfort, strength, and guidance.

And we live not just conscious of God. But the Christian lives with God truly present in his soul. The Christian becomes a walking tabernacle, a divine temple. This is extraordinary. For the Christian is not simply flesh and blood, but the baptized Christian, with God dwelling in his soul brings God into everything he does. Our lives become extensions of the dominion of God, prisms for the light of God to shine from within, antenna to receive and transmit the Word of God in the world. God is made known, his divine life and power become detectable through us. 

Secondly, unlike the rest of the world, the Christian lives grounded in the Truth of God’s moral law. The Christian seeks to rid themselves of what humans shouldn’t be doing and to do what humans should be doing. Christians restrain ourselves from what is forbidden and do what is commanded by God himself. Christians observes all the “thou shalt nots”—observing the moral law—and also seek the perfection of virtue and the cultivation of the fruits and gifts of the holy spirit. 

And this is extraordinary. For the ordinary state is just to follow our feelings. Just do what everybody else is doing, accept the mainstream values, tolerate the breaking-down of society.  That’s normal, that’s expected, that’s how to fit in. But the Christian is called to do the opposite of the ordinary. Not to imitate the world, but to imitate Christ. Not to fall into the depravity and corruption of the mainstream, but to resist it; not to tolerate evil, but to be a force of Good, to draw souls away from evil and toward God. 

The Christian vocation is anything but ordinary. Nothing is more unexpected than the Christian authentically living the faith. When you observe a Christian making use of a spiritual gift you recognize that something extraordinary is happening. When a Christian speaks in a prophetic way, or engages in selfless works of charity, or organizes people to accomplish something for God that they could not accomplish on their own, that is extraordinary. And we’re called to do these things every day, to live extraordinarily every day. I can’t think of anything more a pastor would rather see than parishioners bringing forth their gifts in service to the mission of the parish in extraordinary ways. 

A final way Christians are extraordinary is the way by which we suffer. All people suffer. All people get sick, age, and experience the effects of mortality. Suffering is ordinary. But Christians can suffer in an extraordinary way when we unite our sufferings with Christ, in what is called redemptive suffering or reparative suffering, by what is called “offering up” our sufferings.  

When Christians consciously, intentionally unite our ordinary sufferings to Christ, accepting the share in the cross of Christ, we are able do something that is eminently extraordinary. We are able to be a conduit of healing and grace for the world. We can say, “Lord, let my suffering be for some good” and that prayer is heard by God. Through redemptive suffering we can make amends for sins against God, remitting the time we would spend in purgatory, doing penance for others, and winning grace for the conversion of hardened hearts. 

Ordinary Time: it might seem boring to some, but if you are conscious of your mission, your identity, and the opportunities for holiness, it won’t be anything less than extraordinary. For the glory of God and salvation of souls.