Ordinary Time

Ordinary time, you are here.

January is a good time to remember that God is awesome in simplicity, in littleness.

Our Christmas decorations have been slow to disappear this year.  This weekend marks the Feast of the Presentation, or Candlemas, so hopefully our tree will finally be down and recycled and the last of the Christmas books stored away.  With each removal, however, I have been reminded that Christ is in our simplicity, not just in our decoration and feasting.  As we have been holed up for home days in the cold, as we have returned to routine, battled sickness and snow, I have savored His presence in the ordinary moments of our daily life.  Yes, this is ordinary time, where God can be extraordinary in our normalcy.

The readings at Mass these days have focused on Jesus' public life following His baptism.  Pope Francis has reminded the world that "the Lord walks the roads of our daily life."  No one, and no moment of our day, is beyond His reach.  He wants to fill all of us, and all of our lives, with His love. So, Lord, come into the ordinary moments of this ordinary time.  Reach into the cold, the routine, and fill us with your Love.  

“Each Christian and every community must discern the path that the Lord points out, but all of us are asked to obey his call to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the ‘peripheries’ in need of the light of the Gospel.”

~Pope Francis, “Evangelii gaudium,” 20