Ordinary time

The church year has two seasons that share a name that is both peculiar and
commonplace: Ordinary Time. These two stretches of Sundays fall between Epiphany and Lent in the winter and between Pentecost and Reign of Christ Sunday in the summer. While the label has different meanings, “ordinary” suggests the fact that often discipleship is a matter of routine, regular, run-of-the-mill faithfulness—with our practices of faith not pyrotechnical in nature, but simply earnest and sustained.

This year our own Karon O’Ferrall has gifted us with a bulletin board visual that interprets the meaning of Ordinary Time, what Gerome Berryman calls “the green and growing days.” Notice the dynamic movement across a static background, suggesting the way in which the ordinary living out of our faith moves us ever closer to holiness, and to wholeness. The three golden rays might represent the Trinity, reminding us that all our growing is a growing in grace, a gift of God’s love wending its way into our hearts and lives, our choices and decisions. 

Karon has offered some lovely and lively guiding words for this Ordinary Time visual.

This year winter’s Ordinary Time stretches through the entire month of February, an unusually protracted stretch for the Season after Epiphany. (March 2 will bring us to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.) What are your desires for an earnest and sustained practice of faith through this green and growing season? Reflect on ways God is growing your faith through this season between seasons, and ask God to lead you to places of love and serving as the expression of that faith.

Grace and peace,
Paul