With the feast of Christ’s Baptism last Sunday, and the ‘Second Sunday’ today, we enter back into what we now call ‘Ordinary Time’. We should not misconstrue this term – Ordinary’ here means not ‘humdrum’, but is derived from from the ordinal numbers after which the Sundays are now named, with yesterday being the ‘First’, next Sunday the ‘Second’, all the way to the Christological ’33’ Sundays to the end of the year…
After all, no time is ‘ordinary’ in our eschatological Catholic perspective. On the contrary, everything is extraordinary, leading us to eternity. Life is an adventure, a pilgrimage to the eternal bliss of heaven. Whatever happens on ‘this side’ is sort of secondary. Keep your eyes on the prize, and the goal of all our striving.
There was a benefit to the more descriptive titles of the usus antiquior, named after the festive or liturgical cycle, and the feasts that preceded the Sundays, as in ‘second Sunday after Pentecost’, or ‘Septuagesima’ Sunday. Speaking of the old rite, today would be the ‘Second Sunday After Epiphany’ in the pre-1969 calendar, with Epiphany-tide continuing until the feast of the Presentation, so, whichever calendar you follow, feel free to keep up some spirit of the season!
Such is part and parcel of any number of things needed with deep liturgical renewal. Someday, our patience will be rewarded, one way or another; by perseverance, especially in ordinary things, as Christ promises that we will gain our souls. +