ORDINARY TIME:

When the liturgy was re-ordered after the Second Vatican Council, the Church introduced the new designation of ‘Ordinary Time’, which covers two thirds of the calendar. The great Feasts of Christmas and Easter are singled out and, of course, we prepare for them with Advent and Lent and follow them with other great Feasts like the Epiphany and Pentecost. In former times the Sundays were called those after the Epiphany and those after Pentecost, but now they are simply the Sundays in the thirty-four weeks of Ordinary Time. And we have a longer period of Ordinary Time at present, with Easter not until the 20 April this year.

For a long time, I thought the new arrangement seemed rather bland, but I am beginning to accept that there is a value in highlighting the extraordinary and that much of life is simply coping with the humdrum ordinary day to day business of living, even when it comes to our spiritual welfare. That stated, I want to note that I am conscious that many people in both parishes are striving to ensure that we celebrate the ordinary in the best possible way. Firstly, I want to thank those who have taken initiatives in relation to the ministries of ‘Reading’ and ‘Holy Communion for the housebound’, and to the altar servers in both parishes who are keen to enhance our ceremonies with the use of incense. Indeed, this has inspired me to see whether we can encourage a new young team of servers in both parishes, who can be trained by the older ones. Ben, who has also done the youth training and been commissioned as a Minister of Holy Communion, is willing to supervise this project during his gap year before going to university.