The 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time

After a long but incredibly significant detour through the history of the redemption and salvation of mankind during Lent and Eastertide we have finally returned to the Sundays of Ordinary, or Ordered, Time.  The last Sunday of Ordinary Time that we celebrated was the 9th Sunday of Ordinary Time on March 2nd.  The season of Ordinary Time actually started on June 9, the Monday after Pentecost, but because of the Solemnities of Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi (in the United States), and this year Saints Peter and Paul, this is the first trip back to the numbered Sundays.  And here we will stay until the end of November when the year will turn over once more at the beginning of Advent and the cycle of the Incarnation and the Redemption will begin anew.

This long march of the second part of Ordinary Time is always a good time to reflect on the Incarnation, the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord that we have spent the first part of the year celebrating and to work on how we can incorporate these great Mysteries into the seeming mundanity of our day to day lives.  

And remember this: Ordinary Time is not ordinary!  It is just the less than wonderful translation chosen by the Church in the English speaking world to reflect the ordered nature of the Sundays that follow Christmas and Pentecost.  In the ancient calendar employed by the Extraordinary Form the Sundays of what we know as the first part of Ordinary Time following Christmas are simply numbered as the “nth Sunday after Epiphany” and those after Pentecost are numbered, unsurprisingly, as the “nth Sunday after Pentecost.”  Probably a better way to do it but those decisions are above my pay grade!

And remember all through Ordinary Time and beyond: pray the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary on Monday for the See of Constantinople, the Sorrowful Mysteries on Tuesday for the See of Antioch, the Glorious Mysteries on Wednesday for the (now extremely troubled) See of Jerusalem, the Luminous Mysteries on Thursday for the See of Alexandria, and the Sorrowful Mysteries on Friday for the See of Carthage; for their liberty and their salvation and the restoration of their ancient position as pillars of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church in communion with the See of Peter in Rome; for the conversion of the Jewish people and the conversion of the Muslim peoples.  And join the Rosary Confraternity!