On Mondays, I answer questions frequently asked by those considering a return to the Catholic Church. How do I know this stuff? I was away for more than 30 years myself, and am the co-author of When They Come Home: Ways to Welcome Returning Catholics, a book for pastors and parish leaders interested in this ministry.
The bulletin said we’re near the end of “Ordinary Time.” What’s that mean? Is Mass more boring at some times of the year than at others?
Personally, I never find Mass boring. Call me an uber-Catholic, but anytime I get an opportunity to participate in the Eucharist or be with a gathering of the body of Christ, boring is about the last word I’d use.
OK. Now, back to your question.
“Ordinary time” refers to “order,” the weeks in which we number time. It’s a season in the same way Advent and Christmas and Lent and Easter are liturgical seasons. They all have specific liturgical colors (purple and rose in Advent and Lent; white or gold in Christmas and Easter and certain feasts; red on Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Pentecost and feasts of most martyrs; and green during ordinary time). During ordinary time, our Gospel readings focus on what Jesus did during his three-year public ministry. Those years were a time of the proclamation of hope and life and redemption through God’s Son, and they were no ordinary time in the way one might typically think of the word “ordinary.” They changed the world.
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