June 18 - "Ordinary Time...Paul Turner"

I am going to take a break this week from writing my usual column because I returned on Sunday afternoon (6/11) after presiding at the Funeral Mass and burial of my mother in Pennsylvania.  Today, please enjoy this column by Fr. Paul Turner, one of my favorite authors on liturgical matters.  I’ll be back next week.   Fr. John
 
Ordinary Time
Paul Turner
                Ordinary Time, the longest season of the church year, fills the weeks “which do not celebrate a specific aspect of the mystery of Christ.” It’s the no-particular-reason season. Christmas Time honors the birth of Christ. Easter Time rejoices in the resurrection. Ordinary Time is devoted to the mystery of Christ in all its aspects.
The number of the weeks of Ordinary Time replaces the old counting of weeks “after Epiphany” and “after Pentecost.” The old calendar suggested that Pentecost ran for six months. The new calendar gives Pentecost a day. Then we return to Ordinary Time.
At first glance the principles of Ordinary Time seem basic enough. Start counting the weeks after Christmas Time. Break for Lent and Easter. Resume after Pentecost and keep counting till Advent. Basically, that’s how it works. But we have a few quirks.
For example, there is no “First Sunday in Ordinary Time”; however, there is a first week. Usually Christmas Time ends on a Sunday with the Baptism of the Lord. The lectionary also calls it the First Sunday in Ordinary Time, but it is part of Christmas Time. (Some years the Baptism of the Lord falls on a Monday, but that’s another story.) Ordinary Time gets underway on a weekday. When the next Sunday rolls around we start week two.
On the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, we see the last of Ordinary Time until after Pentecost. Even then, it emerges only on weekdays. Trinity Sunday always follows Pentecost Sunday, and the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord comes the next Sunday in the United States. (In countries where this solemnity is a holy day, it falls on a Thursday.) So when the numbered Sundays in Ordinary Time return in summer, we start out a little higher than where we left off.
Sometimes we skip one or two entire weeks of Ordinary Time during the Easter break. We want to close the Sundays of the year with Christ the King, one week before Advent. Christ the King always falls on the 34th Sunday in Ordinary Time. So, we determine the week number after Pentecost not based on where we left off before Lent but counting backwards from Christ the King. One or two weeks may disappear, but Ordinary Time still serves the complete mystery of Christ.
 
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