Extraordinary Joy in Ordinary Time

Besides the times of year that have their own distinctive character, there remain in the yearly

cycle thirty-three or thirty-four weeks in which no particular aspect of the mystery of Christ is

celebrated, but rather the mystery of Christ itself is honoured in its fullness, especially on

Sundays. This period is known as Ordinary Time.

-Universal Norms for the Liturgical Year and Calendar, 43

According to the traditional church liturgical calendar, we are currently in “Ordinary Time.” This

name can feel contradictory for this particular physical season here in coastal Maine, as this is

when time can feel like it is speeding up as we see hosts of tourists converge on our beaches and

in our villages, and we can find ourselves also trying to cram as much activity as possible into

three months of sun. Go, go, go—get to the beach, the water park, the woods, the camp; visit

family, visit friends; have friends and family visit you, don’t stop, don’t breathe, don’t miss a

moment because before we know it summer will be over and the school year will have begun and

we’ll be back in the chains of our schedules.

There’s a deep disconnect and irony when it is demanded of us—by society, by other people, by

our own expectations—that we must relax now by rushing to do everything under the sun in

order to enjoy to the fullest this brief time of summer. This season can feel like it ought to be

called “Extraordinary Time,” as we feel the pressure to grasp at every opportunity and to fill

every moment with something special.

We can experience something similar in our Christian walk, as well. In Matthew 11:28, Jesus

offers: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (NIV) Yet

often times the message we hear from the church and popular Christian speakers and books is the

call to “do great things for the Lord.” Be a missionary to a foreign country, adopt orphans, go to

seminary, become a pastor, give up every moment of your time to serving the church, rise at

4:30am every morning for two hours of prayer and Scripture study before starting your day …

None of these are bad things—in fact, many of them are wonderful examples of lives lived in

and for the Lord! But when they are demanded of us, when they are presented as the only type of

life that “counts” as a Christian life, they become burdens we were never meant to carry. The call

to walk with Jesus becomes a demand to live extraordinary lives.

What if we took a step back and looked at what it might mean to walk with Jesus in our ordinary

lives? What if we looked at “ordinary time” as a gift? To be invited to share even the most

mundane aspects of our day—washing dishes, sitting at a desk in our work office, making

supper, commuting to and from work—with a friend who is closer than a brother? (Prov. 18:24)

Ordinary time does not have to mean dreary routine, with nothing exciting or special to light it.

In fact, it can be seen as the exact opposite: an invitation to delight in the ordinary, as God does

in Genesis as he looks at the world he created—the same world we live in today, though a little

more broken and scarred now—and declares it is good. Perhaps this season, rather than rushing

to fill every moment of our days with something special, we can instead slow down and look for

the special gifts hidden inside our ordinary days. Instead of panicking as we see the calendar pass

the halfway point of summer and we realize all we haven’t done yet, we might take each day as a

chance to rest in the one who delights in us, in all our ordinary-ness.

Feasts and festivals are wonderful, and this is not to take away from the wonder and delight those

seasons bring. Perhaps for you, summer feels like three months of feasting, and this entire piece

feels irrelevant to your experience. But if you are one who is feeling too much pressure to force

summer to be extraordinary, consider this your invitation to step into Ordinary Time, and to use

these three months to truly rest and see how Christ is at work in even the smallest, most mundane

aspects of our days.