BLOG ARTICLE

Ordinary — the word we use for the commonplace, the normal — and yet this word is rarely used neutrally; rather, a certain disdain laces its meaning.

No one wants to be ordinary.

We do not expect to encounter the glorious in the ordinary. No, there is something commonly routine and drably familiar in the ordinary.

We want the extra-ordinary, the enhanced version, the vision of something … else; something that is not this ordinary moment or thing or person.

We want the ‘impressive’ to capture our attention and to inspire our lives.

He had … nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

Isaiah 53:2

And yet what do we overlook when we despise and reject that which
we
have
named
as merely ordinary?

He was despised and rejected by men … and we didn’t value him.

Isaiah 53:3

What treasures do we fail to appreciate because
we
have
determined
God cannot be found there — in the place called ordinary.

Can anything good come from Nazareth?

John 1:46

As we move through the subdued coldness of this winter season, the rhythms of the Church calendar welcome us now into the interval that is called ‘Ordinary Time’.

This season is not the iridescent allure of Advent or the brilliant breath of Pentecost.

Ordinary Time is the occasion to sit in the everyday, to walk in the finite createdness of the conventional.

Yet this is not a time to be dismissed or devalued.

In Christ, the eternal Word, through whom all things came to be, Ordinary Time is always brimming with the extra-ordinary — that resplendent resolve of life that flickers and shimmers, half-hidden and waiting for one who will glimpse its gift.

In Ordinary Time, the observant heart can detect the kisses of divine love pressed into the warmth of sunlight, the laughter of divine delight on the winds that move through bare branches, and the faithfulness of the Father echoing from the ground that holds each one of our very ordinary steps.

As we find ourselves in Ordinary Time, let us incline our hearts to receive the beauty fastened in the commonplace.

Ordinary is not devoid of inspiration; it bears witness to the Word eternally speaking.

We only need ears to hear and eyes to see.