Doesn’t it sound strange and a little bit funny to solemnly announce before each Sunday Mass: “Today is the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time?” What is so ordinary about coming together to pray and celebrate the Eucharist? We are engaged in holy stuff that has been passed on to us from our ancestors in the Faith. That’s really extraordinary.
I think of all those in my family who carried on in the Faith which was passed onto them from their forebearers. They lived ordinary lives, I suppose, but to me their influence is far from ordinary. Their faith in God, love for the Church and devotion to family was handed on to me and my family like an heirloom, precious and with an urgent message.
The Gospel is that message and I am so grateful to have received it.
I guess I’ll let the liturgists have their way with “ordinary time,” as long as they allow me space to
display the black and white images of men and women posing in farmyards and on the running boards of old Buicks. It’s a lively gallery, that room in my heart.
I want to remember the ordinary times of ordinary people. I want to remember mothers whose kids peek from behind their aprons or are caught in stop-motion, running toward swings in backyards that are long gone. Uncles and Aunts are still smiling and warming my soul from someplace way back there in times that were ordinary to them, but extraordinary to me.