Ordinary Time

Today is the first day following the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.  As such (by most reckonings) it was the first day of Ordinary Time.  This is the liturgical season that begins immediately following the Baptism feast and it runs through Shrove Tuesday, or the day before Ash Wednesday (March 6 in 2019).

The church calls this time after The Epiphany Ordinary Time.  (I addressed those unusual days between Epiphany and The Baptism in a post dated January 11.)  This period gets its name from the way that we number the days during this time.  We do not designate this stretch ordinary because we label this time as somehow common or dull.  Rather, the church employs this designation because of the nature of the numbering of these days.  Instead of using cardinal numbers (one, two, three) it utilizes ordinal numbers (first, second, third).  So, we call this coming Sunday, February 20, The Second Sunday After The Epiphany.

Because Ash Wednesday is a moveable feast (an observance that does not occur on the same date each year), ordinary time will be of varying duration from year to year.  Ash Wednesday can fall anywhere between February 4 and March 10, though the two extremes of the range are very rare.  The last time Ash Wednesday was on February 4 was 1818 and will next occur in 2285.  The most recent time Ash Wednesday fell on March 10 was in 1943 and will next occur in 2038.  So, the duration of ordinary time is between four and nine weeks.  In the modern liturgical usage, the first Sunday in Ordinary Time is The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord and the last Sunday is The Feast of the Transfiguration.  Obviously, there are two more days in the season before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday.

Ordinary time carries with it emphases on mission (begun with the narrative of the Wise Men visiting the infant Jesus) and spiritual growth.  The liturgical colors of the season are white (for the feast days) and green (signifying new, eternal and abundant life) for the rest of the season.  The New Revised Common Lectionary (NRCL) offers gospel texts that reveal the nature of Jesus Christ (in keeping with the Epiphany theme).  The epistle readings address the topics of spiritual gifts and the character of the church (in an examination of spiritual growth).

We can be deceived by looking over our shoulders at Christmas and ahead to Easter so that we think that ordinary time is a “down time,” a respite between major occurrences where nothing of significance takes place.  But it can be an extraordinary time, where the church addresses some of its most formative ideas.

What a great time.