Ordinary Time begins on Monday, January 13 and ends on Mardi Gras, the day before Ash Wednesday (March 5). This is the first season of Ordinary Time during the Liturgical Year; the second begins after Pentecost and lasts until Advent. Ordinary Time is not called this because it is lacking pizzaz or something special. It is so-called because it has a numerical, an ordinal, base; its Sundays are counted, as in the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (January 19), etc. During Ordinary Time, we walk with Jesus as he ministers to the people of this time, healing, forgiving, welcoming those around him and we hear his call to us to do the same today. Joan Chittister, OSB, in her 2009 book The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life, says that “Ordinary Time translates the life of Jesus into the very marrow of life itself” (p. 29). Ordinary Time is about the reality of Jesus’ life and our life as his followers…day by day, action by action.
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