ORDINARY TIME – IT IS NOT ORDINARY AT ALL!

The Church Year is such a wonderful grace from God for all of us to participate in. We have special seasons throughout the year, seasons that we seem to try to be more faithful. We pray with hopeful anticipation for the coming of our Lord during the Advent Season. At Christmas, we rejoice with great joy in the Incarnation, The Word made flesh! During Lent, we enter into a season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving as we make preparations for Holy Week and the Season of Easter. During Holy Week, we remember Jesus’ triumphant entry in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and then journey with Jesus as He enters into His passion, and death on the cross. At the Easter Vigil, and all through the Easter Season, we rejoice again in the Resurrection of the Lord, and our promise of salvation! Truly, these Liturgical Seasons are vitally important to our spiritual and secular lives.

This weekend is the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, and as I indicated in the title of this article, Ordinary Time is not ordinary at all! We all know there are 365 days in a year, unless it is a leap year, which makes no sense to me. Did you know that all of the special seasons we celebrate during the Church Year amount to 137 days this year? That means the rest of the year, or 228 days, we spend in Ordinary Time! Did you ever think of that? What does Ordinary Time mean to us? Does it mean we can cut ourselves some slack in the practice of our faith? Can we take it a little easier on ourselves during Ordinary Time? I don’t think so, and I thought a little sports analogy might make some sense here.

You probably know by now that I am a huge sports fan. I was thinking about the Church Year and Ordinary Time, and thought I could make a comparison with the Baseball Season. You might know the baseball season lasts for 162 games. Games begin in March, and continue in the regular season right into September. The regular season is very long, and the hope of every team is that they will make the end-of-season playoffs, and ultimately make the World Series!

In order to accomplish that goal of winning the World Series, teams have to perform well over the 162 game regular season or what we might call Ordinary Time. Games that are played in the cold, wet conditions of March are just as important as games played in the sunny warmth of July and August.

Teams cannot afford to slack off during the regular season (Ordinary Time) if they want to make the playoffs and World Series. By comparison, what we do during Ordinary time is just as important as what we do during the other seasons of the Church Year.

Keeping with the comparison, let’s say winning the World Series is like getting into Heaven. We will get into Heaven if we are faithful each and every day of the Church Year, not just during those special, holy seasons. Now that you know that we spend most of our Church Year in Ordinary Time, can you agree with me when I say Ordinary Time is Far From Ordinary

God bless.
Deacon Chris

A PRAYER FOR DIVINE MERCY
 
     O greatly Merciful god, Infinite Goodness, today all mankind calls out from the abyss of its misery to Your mercy— to Your compassion, O God: and it is with its mighty voice of misery that it cries out. Gracious God, do not reject the prayer of this earth’s exiles! O Lord, Goodness beyond our understanding, who are acquainted with our misery through and through, and know that by our own power we cannot ascend to You, we implore You: anticipate us with Your grace and keep on increasing Your mercy in us, that we may faithfully do Your holy will through our life and at death’s hour.
 
     Let the omnipotence of Your mercy shield us from the darts of our salvation’s enemies, that we may with confidence, as Your children, await Your final coming—that day known to You alone. And we expect to obtain everything promised us by Jesus in spite of all our wretchedness. For Jesus is our Hope: Through His merciful Heart as through an open gate we pass through to heaven. Amen.
 
     Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, 1570

The Daily Prayer for Priests
By St. Therese of the Child Jesus

O Jesus, I pray for your faithful and fervent priests;
For your unfaithful and tepid priest;
For your priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields.
For your tempted priests;
For your lonely and desolate priests;
For your young priests;
For the souls of your priests in Purgatory.
But above all, I recommend to you the priests dearest to me:
The priest who baptized me;
The priests who absolved me from my sins;
The priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion;
The priests who taught and instructed me;
All the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way (especially …)
O Jesus, keep them all close to your heart,
And bless them abundantly in time and in eternity.

Amen.

I found this in a book written by Father Ronald Rolheiser titled, “Sacred Fire, A Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity.”  This begins chapter six in the book which is titled, “Drawing Strength From Prayer.”  I think it is worth sharing.
Deacon Chris

The Difference
 
By Grace L. Naessens
 
I got up early one morning and rushed right into the day;
I had so much to accomplish, I didn’t have time to pray.
 
Problems just tumbled about me and grew heavier with each task;
Why doesn’t God help me, I wondered; He answered, “You didn’t ask.”
 
I wanted to see joy and beauty, but the day toiled on, gray and bleak;
I wondered why God didn’t show me – He said, “But you didn’t seek.”
 
I tried to come into God’s presence; I used all my keys at the lock;
God gently and lovingly chided, “My child, you didn’t knock.”
 
I woke up early this morning and paused before entering the day;
I had so much to accomplish that I had to take time to pray.

Prayer for Persecuted Christians
 
O God of all the nations,
the One God who is and was and always will be,
in your providence you willed that your Church
be united to the suffering of your Son.
Look with mercy on your servants
who are persecuted for their faith in you.
Grant them perseverance and courage
to be worthy imitators of Christ.
Bring your wisdom upon leaders of nations
to work for peace among all peoples.
May your Spirit open conversion
for those who contradict your will,
that we may live in harmony.
Give us the grace to be united in truth and freedom,
and to always seek your will in our lives.
 
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our Lady, Queen of Peace, pray for us!

I found this in the book, “Everything Starts from Prayer, St. Mother Teresa’s Meditations on Spiritual Life for People of All Faiths.” 
A good prayer to start our days.
God bless   
Deacon Chris

In the words of St. Teresa of Calcutta: 
“Wherever they are, the Missionaries of Charity start the day’s work with the same prayer from their community prayer book: 
 

MISSIONARIES OF CHARITY PRAYER

Dear Lord, the Great Healer, I kneel
before you, since every perfect gift
must come from you.  I pray, give skill to
my hands, clear vision to my mind,
kindness and meekness to my heart.
Give me singleness of purpose, strength
to lift up a part of the burden of my
suffering fellowmen, and a realization
of the privilege that is mine.  Take from
my heart all guile and worldliness, that
with the simple faith of a child, I may
Rely on you.
Amen.