“What’s So Ordinary About Ordinary Time?”
By Amilee Bishop, Fiat Ventures
Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
It’s June, it’s summer, and we’re back to “Ordinary Time”. I don’t know about you, but for me this time of year is anything but ordinary! There are final exams, projects, proms, graduations, parties, weddings, beach weekends…life is busier than ever! But this season of “Ordinary Time” in the Church doesn’t just mean that we’re back to the normal old routine.
Part of the reason we have “Ordinary Time” is to emphasize those times of the year that aren’t so Ordinary – Lent and Advent where we have an extra focus on our spiritual lives, and the Easter and Christmas seasons where we take extra time to celebrate the great things that God has done for us. Still, in Ordinary Time we get to hear about Jesus’s day-to-day ministry on earth and learn more about his love and mercy for each one of us.
This Sunday, we hear about how Jesus raised a dead man back to life. Most of us are familiar with the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, but this story of Jesus raising the unnamed man is less well known. You’ll notice that most of the details are the same, except one: Jesus offered healing to this man without first being asked.
St. Ambrose writes, “the widow signifies Mother Church, weeping for those who are dead in sin and carried beyond the safety of her gates. The multitudes looking on will praise the Lord when sinners rise again from death and are restored to their mother.”
If we think about this metaphor that St. Ambrose provides for us, it follows that the Lord will not only raise sinners from the dead to bring them back into communion with the church, but also that he will do so out of His great love for us, even without being asked. The Lord knows the deepest desires of our hearts; and though many of us struggle to follow his Word and his will for our lives, he is always willing to grant us his mercy, to forgive us, and to bring us back home to the Church.
So in this busy and stressful time of the year, keep this hopeful message in mind. No matter what kind of trouble we get ourselves into, or how we turn away from God, he will always be waiting with open arms to welcome us back. And that is no ordinary thing- that is quite extraordinary!