The Liturgical Year
The Liturgical Year consists of the two great seasons, the Incarnation Season and the Paschal Season, and of Ordinary Time. The Incarnation Season, “God became flesh,” celebrates Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, and Baptism of the Lord. The Paschal Season observes Lent, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost. The rest of the year is called Ordinary Time, not because it is commonplace or dull. It is named from ordinal numbers: the rest of the year is counted as in Third Sunday in Ordinary Time or Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
There are a few weeks of Ordinary Time at the end of the Incarnation Season until the beginning of Lent. Ordinary Time resumes after Pentecost. This year it began on June 9 and will continue until the evening of Nov. 29.
Ordinary Time doesn’t have a specific focus from the life of Jesus or a particular emphasis on how to deepen our relationship with God such as the Lenten attention to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Rather, we are looking at the whole of the teachings and actions of Christ and how they influence our daily lives as Christians in the world. We are going about our regular days at home, at work, in fact, everywhere we are, learning more about how to answer our call to discipleship given at Baptism.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops says this: “Ordinary Time is a time for growth and maturation, a time in which the mystery of Christ is called to penetrate ever more deeply into history until all things are finally caught up in Christ.”
Take time to study the Scriptures for the upcoming Sundays. If your schedule is an issue, start with reflection on the Gospel. What do these words say to you about your daily life in Christ? How can you put these words into practice? If you have a little more time, read and pray the Psalm for Sunday. You could use it for a bedtime prayer every night. Read and reflect on the other two readings as time allows. Do what you can each week to use your private prayer time to prepare for Sunday’s Mass. Be open to the Spirit who will lead you to insights about yourself and about God.
Some of the Sundays in Ordinary Time celebrate what are called Solemnities of the Lord. Two of these Sundays are Trinity Sunday (this year, June 15) and Corpus Christi (June 22). The last Sunday in Ordinary Time will focus on Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (Christ the King) in November before the start of Advent.
