The Second Sunday of Ordinary Time
Ordinary Time. It doesn’t sound great. After all the festivities, time off, time with family, Christmas parties and New Year’s Eve parties, we are left with cold hard normalcy. For some, it is refreshing to get back into some sense of normal after the whirlwind of the holidays. For others, like myself, these next few months are my least favorite of the year. Maybe it’s seasonal depression, maybe I just don’t like the short days or the cold, maybe I dread the long dreary winters of late that have consistently been cold, wet, and rainy with very little snow to brighten up the landscape.
For many, the New Year is a time to focus on self improvement. Not for me – I personally think January is a terrible time for New Year’s resolutions. I have absolutely no motivation for improving my life or habits and my only goal is to survive the winter and wait for better, brighter days when optimism, hope and possibility begin to bloom with the turning of the season. So, what can God possibly have in store for me, or for you, during this time of year? What does “ordinary” mean in terms of our faith? We recently celebrated Christmas – when God became man and entered our world in the person of Jesus. Nothing ordinary about that. But now what?
Now that Jesus has come and the festivities are over, it is time to let Him into our lives. And most of the time, our lives are pretty ordinary. But the whole point of Christmas is that even in ordinary time, Jesus is present, which can turn the ordinary into extraordinary. I think it’s analogous to marriage. Marriage itself – the actual act of getting married, is incredibly exciting. There is a ton of planning to get ready, then there’s a beautiful, solemn ceremony, then there’s the reception, then there’s the honeymoon. All of that is intense, high energy, high impact stuff. Kinda like the Christmas/holiday whirlwind that can leave us feeling excited, anxious, exhausted, overwhelmed and full of holiday cheer all at the same time. In marriage, after all that excitement, after all that planning and busyness and partying and celebration and time off on the honeymoon, after all that, you have to go back to normal life. Except that there is nothing normal about it anymore because now it’s not just you – it’s you and your spouse. And yes, you still have to do all the same things, you still have to go to work and live your normal life but now you are sharing it with someone else.
This period of “Ordinary Time” should be something like that. After celebrating Christmas and Jesus’ coming into the world, now that all the celebrations are over and the festivities are done, it is time to let Him into the ordinary of our everyday lives. Even if this time of year is particularly difficult, as it is for me, Jesus still wants to be a part of it. And He wants to fill it with His Love and Joy and Peace.