Monday, January 12 is the official beginning of the liturgical season of Ordinary Time. It is the first segment of the 2026 Ordinary Time season; the second segment starts after the conclusion of the Easter Season (Pentecost Sunday). Our current phase of Ordinary Time begins on the day after we celebrate Jesus’ Baptism and ends on Tuesday, February 17, the day before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the liturgical season of Lent. Maxwell E. Johnson, in an essay entitled “The Acceptable Year of the Lord”, which is published in the January issue of Give Us This Day: Daily Prayer for Today’s Catholic, reminds us that Christ is present to us in our own time, not just in history. He writes that the entire liturgical year, composed of its numerous seasons, fasts and feasts, “is not a historical re-enactment of past events, but rather the saving encounter with Christ who lives ‘today’ for us and for our salvation…” (p. 90). Ordinary Time, the longest of the church’s liturgical seasons, provides us with the opportunity to experience, in Jesus, God’s call, God’s teachings and God’s actions in our world.

The Christmas season, while short in length, consists of more than just Christmas Day itself or the Twelve Days of Christmas (December 25 to January 5); it lasts until the Baptism of Jesus which, in 2026, is celebrated on January 11. Looking at the gospel readings for the Christmas vigil and Christmas Day Masses (including what is traditionally known as the Midnight Mass), we see that the three gospels that have relevant passages (Matthew, Luke and John) are featured. The vigil Mass features the account of Jesus’ human ancestry and his birth found in Matthew’s gospel (Matthew 1:1-25). The next two Masses, Mass at Night and Mass at Dawn, give us accounts from the gospel of Luke (Luke 2:1-14 and Luke 2:15-20). The so called “Prologue” of John’s gospel (John 1:1-18) is the gospel for the Masses celebrated during Christmas Day. You will find all of these readings at https://bit.ly/USCCBChristmas.

This year, all four of the first readings on the Sundays of Advent are from the book of the prophet, Isaiah. This book of the Old Testament is quite long (66 chapters) and probably had numerous authors, among them Isaiah himself and some of his disciples. For a great introduction to the book of Isaiah, go to the Bible Project, a Christian organization that provides excellent audio and visual guides to all of the Protestant Bible’s many books as well as numerous biblical themes; here’s the website for the book of Isaiah: https://bit.ly/BibleProjectIsaiah.

The month of November often directs our minds to the end times, as we complete our observance of Ordinary Time and work our way to the Feast of Christ the King and the end of the liturgical year. This year, however, the first two Sundays of November give us different points of focus. On November 2, as we observe All Souls Day, we commemorate all those who have died; we remember that “the souls of the just are in the hand of God” and that, as St. Paul has told us, “hope does not disappoint”. The next Sunday, November 9, we celebrate the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome, the Pope’s church; we are told that we are “God’s building” and we see that, as he cleanses the Jerusalem temple of money changers and merchants, Jesus is consumed with zeal for his Father’s house. Neither of these Sundays has the usual focus of the last Sundays of Ordinary Time, which we experience on November 16, the 33^rd Sunday of Ordinary Time. On this day, we are reminded that the day of the Lord is coming; Jesus assures us, however, that by our “perseverance” we will be saved. We begin a new liturgical year with the celebration of the First Sunday of Advent; Year A, the new liturgical year, begins on November 30. You can always prepare for the Sunday readings at https://liturgy.slu.edu/.

Every year, the Church commemorates the anticipation of, and then the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus through its celebration of the different liturgical seasons, what we call the liturgical year. Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB writes in her book, The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life, that “[e]ach church year moves with measured rhythm in order to knit Jesus’ life and vision into our own personal journeys through time” (p. 210). Throughout this month of October, we continue to celebrate the liturgical season of Ordinary Time, a time, which, according to Sr. Joan, specifically invites us to “grow into” and “grow through” the “meanings and messages” of what we hear and learn throughout the year (p. 211).

We continue our observance of Ordinary Time this month, remembering that this time of the liturgical year presents us with opportunities to “fine tune” our response to God’s call, to sharpen our experience of being Catholic Christians in this world. On Sunday, September 7, the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, we are faced with a question from the Old Testament Book of Wisdom: “Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends?” On September 14, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the second reading, from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, can maybe help us to know, in a small way, the mind of God. The reading tells us that God’s son, Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, gave up his life for us and therefore “every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” We see that our life is to be a life of sacrifice for others, patterned after the life of our Lord. There’s more. The following week, we proclaim, in our Responsorial Psalm, that we “[p]raise the Lord who lifts up the poor” (Psalm 113). And on September 28^th, the Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, we hear the parable of the rich man and Lazarus from the Gospel of Luke. This parable can be a wake-up call for us, reminding us that it is our obligation, as Catholic Christians, to care for the poor each day. Perhaps this is what the Lord intends. You can prepare for the Sunday readings at https://liturgy.slu.edu/.

"Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer…" These hit lyrics, introduced by Nat King Cole in 1963, are not the definition of our summer liturgical experience. While we may not experience the rituals and festivities of the other seasons, Ordinary Time II offers us "the wisdom of routine", as Joan Chittister, OSB, calls the chapter on this season in her book entitled The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life. In this chapter, Sr. Joan writes that "[i]t is what we do routinely, not what we do rarely, that delineates the character of a person” (page 183). Ordinary Time provides us with the opportunity to extend the messages of the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter into our regular, daily life; we have the time to work out what being a Catholic Christian, a follower of Jesus, really means. This isn’t lazy, hazy or crazy at all! It’s hard work, and we can approach it knowing that we have the Holy Spirit, whose coming to us we celebrated on the feast of Pentecost, to guide and support us.

Lent 2025 is now complete and we celebrate the joyful season of Easter. Alleluia! The Easter season lasts for fifty days, ending on Pentecost Sunday, June 8, 2025. The first week after Easter Sunday is called the Octave of Easter; the second Sunday of Easter is named Divine Mercy Sunday. On the Sundays of the Easter season, all of the first readings at Mass are from the Acts of the Apostles, rather than from the Old Testament, which is the usual source of the first readings on Sundays. The second readings this year are all from the Book of Revelation and the gospel readings are from the Gospel of St. John. Contemporary Catholics often find the Book of Revelation difficult to understand. You will find a brief explanation/summary of this highly symbolic book on the US Bishops’ website at https://bible.usccb.org/bible/revelation/0. For a somewhat longer and more detailed summary, you can go to the St. Mary’s Press website at https://bit.ly/SMPRevelation. The Book of Revelation reading on the Seventh Sunday of Easter, June 1, ends with the words “Come, Lord Jesus!”, words that we Catholics pray in earnest every day of the year.

The Sunday liturgies of the season of Lent offer us much material for reflection. For starters, the first Sunday of Lent always has the gospel reading about Jesus being tempted by the devil in the desert. This year’s version (there are three versions, one each from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke) is from the Gospel of Luke and outlines the three temptations from the devil we are accustomed to hearing: 1) “command this stone to become bread”, 2) “worship me” and “I will give you this power and glory”, and 3) “if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here…” Jesus did not succumb to these temptations; instead, he used Scripture to refute the devil. Interestingly, the gospel concludes with the sentence: “When the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time” (italics added). If the devil was going to tempt Jesus again, what will the devil do to us…and how will we respond?

Ordinary Time begins on Monday, January 13 and ends on Mardi Gras, the day before Ash Wednesday (March 5). This is the first season of Ordinary Time during the Liturgical Year; the second begins after Pentecost and lasts until Advent. Ordinary Time is not called this because it is lacking pizzaz or something special. It is so-called because it has a numerical, an ordinal, base; its Sundays are counted, as in the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (January 19), etc. During Ordinary Time, we walk with Jesus as he ministers to the people of this time, healing, forgiving, welcoming those around him and we hear his call to us to do the same today. Joan Chittister, OSB, in her 2009 book The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life, says that “Ordinary Time translates the life of Jesus into the very marrow of life itself” (p. 29). Ordinary Time is about the reality of Jesus’ life and our life as his followers…day by day, action by action.