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.

December 1, 2024 is the First Sunday of Advent as well as the first day of a new liturgical year, Year C. We will hear from Luke’s gospel most of the Sundays during this new liturgical year. Luke’s primary audience was most probably Gentiles, or non-Jews; his primary message was one of God’s acceptance of and salvation for the poor, the outcast or marginalized, and the lowly. You can read about Luke’s gospel at the US Bishops’ website, bit.ly/BishopsLuke. You can also watch two videos about this gospel produced by the Bible Project; Part One: bit.ly/LukePartOne, and Part Two: bit.ly/LukePartTwo.

This month of November brings us to the end of liturgical Ordinary Time; we begin the season of Advent, and a new liturgical year, on December 1st. The readings of the first Sunday of November, November 3, remind us that we are to love God and love our neighbor; these are the two greatest commandments. The following week, November 10, Jesus compares the monetary contribution of the poor woman, the widow’s mite, as it is sometimes called, to the monetary contributions made by the rich, saying that the poor woman gave all that she had while the rich have contributed from their surplus wealth. A challenging message for many of us! The next Sunday, the thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, with its apocalyptic readings from the Book of Daniel and the gospel of Mark, focuses our attention on the end times; only God knows when the end will come, we are told. Finally, we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King on November 24; this is the final Sunday of the current liturgical year. We remember that our King, Jesus, is the ruler of the entire universe, all of creation; he is thus not like other kings that the world has known. You can prepare for the Sunday readings at liturgy.slu.edu/.

We remain in the Church’s liturgical season of Ordinary Time this month, our attention focused on Jesus’ recorded words and actions in his time, and their meaning in ours. We are reminded of the great bond of marriage in the gospel on Sunday, October 6, (Mark 10: 2-16) and we hear that Jesus gave sight to the blind Bartimaeus on October 21 (Mark 10:46-52). The second reading on all of the Sundays of October is from the Letter to the Hebrews. The main theme of this “treatise” is the “sacrifice and priesthood of Christ”; this theme is developed so as to strengthen our own faith. From the Letter to the Hebrews we also hear that God’s word is living and effective (Hebrews 4:12), a good parallel to the words of Jesus from Mark’s gospel on that day, that all things are possible for God (Mark 10:27). You can read an introduction to the Letter to the Hebrews on the US Bishops’ Bible website at bible.usccb.org/bible/hebrews/0. And, as always, at the St. Louis University liturgy website, liturgy.slu.edu/ you can find means of preparation for each Sunday’s readings.

September is here. Amazing!!! Where did the summer go? With this month comes a spirit of freshness…the school year begins, organizations hold meetings, the Patriots start a brand new season. Listen to the song Holy Wisdom, Lamp of Learning (bit.ly/LampofLearning) to capture this sense of renewal. On the other hand, we experience constancy in our Church life as we continue to celebrate the Season of Ordinary Time. During September, we will listen to Sunday gospels which tell of Jesus’ mighty deeds and Jesus’ words that help us to become better disciples. This month, along with Jesus’ disciples, we are also asked the question “Who do you say that I am?” The daily and Sunday Mass readings are always available at bible.usccb.org; you can prepare for the Sunday readings at liturgy.slu.edu.