Monday, January 12 is the official beginning of the liturgical season of Ordinary Time. It is the first segment of the 2026 Ordinary Time season; the second segment starts after the conclusion of the Easter Season (Pentecost Sunday). Our current phase of Ordinary Time begins on the day after we celebrate Jesus’ Baptism and ends on Tuesday, February 17, the day before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the liturgical season of Lent. Maxwell E. Johnson, in an essay entitled “The Acceptable Year of the Lord”, which is published in the January issue of Give Us This Day: Daily Prayer for Today’s Catholic, reminds us that Christ is present to us in our own time, not just in history. He writes that the entire liturgical year, composed of its numerous seasons, fasts and feasts, “is not a historical re-enactment of past events, but rather the saving encounter with Christ who lives ‘today’ for us and for our salvation…” (p. 90). Ordinary Time, the longest of the church’s liturgical seasons, provides us with the opportunity to experience, in Jesus, God’s call, God’s teachings and God’s actions in our world.

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