Catholic Outlook Magazine Winter 2021

What is Ordinary Time?
“
Enabled by God’s love, empowered by Christ’s sacrifice
and enlivened by God’s Spirit, we are transformed
– there is nothing ordinary about that!
”
STORY DR DEBRA A SNODDY
Ordinary Time is the name the Church uses for
those weeks outside the seasons of Advent,
Christmastide, Lent and Eastertide. Debra Snoddy
explains why it is much more than ‘ordinary’.
The longest section of Ordinary Time begins
on the Monday after Pentecost, and can run for
up to twenty-seven weeks, depending on when
Advent begins.
The General Norms of the Liturgical Year and the
Calendar section 43 has an official description
of this season:
Apart from those seasons having their own distinctive
character, thirty-three or thirty-four weeks remain
in the yearly cycle that do not celebrate a specific
aspect of the mystery of Christ. Rather, especially
on the Sundays, they are devoted to the mystery
of Christ in all its aspects. This period is known as
“Ordinary Time”.
After all the celebrations of the Seasons of Christ,
Ordinary Time can feel a bit “blah”. But the liturgical
colour for the season is green, the colour of life.
The word “ordinary” has Latin roots which mean “to
bring to order”. By taking these two aspects together,
Ordinary Time is an invitation from the Church to
bring order to our lives, to re-orient ourselves so that
we do not miss the real treasures that this season
has to offer. But why? To what purpose?
The colour of Ordinary Time is green. It is a chance to bring our lives to order.
Image: Diocese of Parramatta.
18