Time Seems so Ordinary Now...

Isaac Garcia, a friend of OLMC and D.R.E. from Vienna, VA, shares a reflection on how to count time during the Season of Ordinary Time. Used with permission from stmarkre.blogspot.com.

Back to Counting Time

Time keeps on slippin'....into the future

With the celebration of Jesus' Baptism on Monday, the Church closed out her Christmas season with a bang (really, with a trickle of water).  Gone from St. Mark are the Christmas decorations.  No more creche, no more star behind the altar, no more wreaths, and no more "Merry Christmas."  Our liturgical celebrate of Christmas is over until December 2012, so now what?

Not Plain...
Now we return to what is called "ordinary time."  That phrase sounds very plain and, well, ordinary.  Our liturgical time is "ordinary" right now because we're neither feasting (Christmas and Easter) nor fasting (Lent); we're neither celebrating (solemnities and feast days) nor preparing (Advent).  Our time is "ordinary" because the Church counts all the days between these special moments and numbers them, places them in a certain order with readings that thematic but not necessarily tied down to a certain celebration or moment.  And just like life, we spend most of the liturgical year neither feasting nor fasting; neither celebrating nor preparing.

...But Still Kept
So what can we do to make ordinary time special?  How can we mark this ordered time?  Our Sunday Visitor gives us six ways to living in ordinary time.  You could try one of those six, or you can come up with your own way to focus your spiritual energy during this liturgical season.

What's your favorite way to mark ordinary time?  Or have you never thought about it?  How can your family grow in faith from here until Lent begins on February 22?

Image: Leo Reynolds (flickr)