About once a month at work, I spend the day working at one of our interim housing sites (shelters). Most of the office staff are assigned one day each month in order to help cover the hours of the normal work day, before the housing staff members come in to cover their evening and overnight shifts at the sites. But, for the most part otherwise, I do not have any interaction with the public or clients we serve. My regular everyday work involves being in an office, working in spreadsheets, running reports, analyzing data, reviewing budgets and spending trends and projections, reading grant contracts and manuals, reviewing policies and procedures, and referencing the Code of Federal Regulations, ensuring contract compliance. This is my ordinary and everyday job. The few times I interact with clients at work is something different and out of the ordinary, which can seem more exciting. Thinking about this made me reflect on the different seasons in the Church. Now that we are back in ordinary time once again, it can seem mundane and boring compared to the other seasons, but it is where most of life is lived, and we can find a lot of beauty and goodness here if we are looking.
Ordinary time is my favorite liturgical season. It takes up the largest chunk of time in the liturgical calendar. And it doesn’t appear to be too exciting. There are no big holidays and it doesn’t really include periods of intense spiritual practices. Yet, I’ve always liked how simple it seemed; how ordinary it appeared. But simple and ordinary does not mean unimportant. In fact, Ordinary time does not have its name due to being ordinary in the sense that we know it. Ordinary comes from the Latin word ordinalis, meaning a numbered order. Even though the name of the season is referring to weeks that are numbered, I think we can still think about Ordinary time as a time that is like regular everyday lives.
The ordinary moments of our days can have a huge impact whether we realize it or not. The conversations we have, the people we interact with, the schedules we follow, the events we go to, the work we do, the text messages we send are all seemingly ordinary things that make up most of our days. But these very things may be what inspires someone, changes something for someone, or impacts someone. On the flip side, we can be inspired, changed, and impacted by the people around us too. Jesus is in the ordinary moments, in the midst of our day-to-day lives. We just need to look.
In Ordinary time, the focus is on the teachings and ministry of Jesus. And it is a time that I think we can learn and grow a lot. It can be a time where we learn how to walk more closely with Jesus, especially in the ordinary moments, where nothing seemingly exciting is happening. It’s where we can learn how to live more like Him, contemplating the Gospels and striving to follow His ways. It is when we can work on being consistent in prayer and showing up, even when things seem dry, or when we might not feel like it. This time is a time to focus on the slow and steady growth that most of life entails. We can work to order our lives more towards Christ.
This liturgical season we are in does not appear grand or exciting, as it is the time outside of the major liturgical seasons. Our lives too are mostly made up of ordinary moments, between big exciting opportunities and experiences that we have at times. Day in and day out, our lives are made up of routine, average, tasks and conversations. But these moments can stretch us and challenge us to keep growing and keep showing up. My prayer for each of us is that we would see every day as an opportunity to encounter Christ in the midst of the ordinary!
Faith and The Good Stuff 