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.
Taking a look at the January/February Sunday gospels, we first witness Jesus’ miracle at the wedding feast in Cana (January 19). This miracle, recounted in the gospel of John, completes the epiphanies, the manifestations, of Jesus as the Son of God; the other epiphanies were celebrated the first two Sundays of January: the coming of the Magi and Jesus’ baptism. This miracle at Cana is mentioned in the hymn, Songs of Thankfulness and Praise, which is in our Breaking Bread missal, #112. Returning to the gospel of Luke (this is the Liturgical Year C, the year of the gospel of Luke), we hear about the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry in the synagogue in Nazareth (January 26), his call to his first apostles by the shore at Lake Gennesaret (February 9) and his teaching of the Beatitudes and a new way of life (February 16 and 23). This teaching is continued on March 2, the Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time, and the final Sunday before the beginning of Lent. The second readings of the Ordinary Time Sundays are all from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, while the Old Testament readings are thematically related to the gospel of the day. As always, you can prepare for the Sunday readings at https://liturgy.slu.edu/.
The month of January is host to the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, January 18 to 25. This year, we mark the 127th anniversary of this Week of Prayer, which is sponsored by the Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute of New York, a ministry of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement (https://geii.org/). Each year, the prayers, reflections and themes for the week are developed by a different community; this year’s materials were developed by the ecumenical monastic community of Bose, in northern Italy, in collaboration with the World Council of Churches and the Vatican. The theme for this year’s Week of Prayer is “Do you believe?”, an acknowledgment of the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea, the worldwide church council which debated and settled many doctrinal issues and then developed the beginnings of the creed we now know as the Nicene Creed.
February 2 is the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, also called Candlemas. This feast is always celebrated on this date, forty days after Christmas. Because February 2 is a Sunday, its commemoration “preempts” the regular celebration of the Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time.
In February, we observe the World Day of the Sick; this year, as always, it is celebrated on February 11, the Feast Day (Optional Memorial) of Our Lady of Lourdes. Pope St. John Paul II established this observance back in 1992. Let us take time to pray for those who suffer from any kind of illness, be it spiritual, emotional, mental or physical.
February 7-14 is celebrated as National Marriage Week, with Sunday, February 9 known as World Marriage Day. The US Bishops have chosen a theme for this year’s National Marriage Week: Marriage: Source of Hope, Spring of Renewal. Pursue a Lasting Love! The Bishops write that observance of National Marriage Week and World Marriage Day “are an opportunity to focus on building a culture of life and love that begins with supporting and promoting marriage and the family” (https://bit.ly/NMWUSBishops). You can find various resources, including programs for lectio divina and an at-home retreat, at the bishops’ website as well. The Worldwide Marriage Encounter organization has a brief history of World Marriage Day as well as a prayer for married couples (https://bit.ly/WMDMarriageEncounter).
Finally, we are now fully engaged in Jubilee Year 2025. There will be a four-week series regarding the Jubilee Year in our parish bulletin, beginning on February 2. You can find a link to our bulletins at https://stmarysfranklin.org/event.
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