Season of Growth

Although Ordinary Time sounds like just a dull, boring time of year, in the Church calendar, it’s the season when Catholics grow and mature in their faith outside the great celebrations of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. 

What is Ordinary Time?

The Liturgical Year follows the natural rhythms of life--periods of intense concentration and celebration followed by times of quiet reflection and maturation.  Ordinary Time or tempus annun in Latin is those weeks and months of growth when we set aside the major anniversaries and remembrances of our Faith and concentrate on our own intimacy with Christ in order to live out the message of the Gospels.

Ordinary Time, the longest season of the liturgical calendar, is the period of time during which the Church is not involved either in celebration--Christmas and Easter--or in penance--Advent and Lent.  Its name comes not from the word meaning common, but from the word “ordinal” meaning numbered.  The Sundays of Ordinary Time are numbered consecutively: first, second, third etc. and mark our steady but sure progress toward the Kingdom of Heaven.