Monday, July 2, 2007

Ordinary Time

This is “ordinary time.”
Who knew ordinary time had a liturgical season all its own? It makes sense, though, since we spend so much of our lives in “ordinary time.”
Maybe the reason we don't pay much attention to this season is it doesn't have great music like Christmas or Easter. What hymns or spiritual songs remind you of “ordinary time?”
How about “He Leadeth Me” or perhaps my favorite “Be Thou My Vision” - those songs certainly speak to the every-dailiness of our faith.
Instead of Christmas candles, ordinary time is illuminated by early light and summer sun, or by lightning bugs and moonlight. Instead of oratorios, ordinary time is lived out to the music of daily life, the rhythm of laundry, cooking, errands, and gardening.
It's the pleasures – and difficulties – of finding joy in one another and in the ordinary things of life.
Sometimes we take ordinary days for granted: familiar pleasures, the repetition of happy routines, the comfort of being close to well loved people and places.
But it is in “ordinary time” that we begin to understand what life is for, and how good it can be – not always easy, not always exciting, but always filled with quiet joy and love for those who take time to see life for what it is.
It is in “ordinary time” that we learn to live.

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