What the heck is “Ordinary Time”??
Ah! Good question as we are about to embark on a rather long stretch of “Ordinary Time”. First, the obligatory quiz: What are the synoptic Gospels? As always, the answer can be found in last months column. An abbreviated version for those of you who used that column to wrap garbage can be found at the end of this little dissertation. Well, as you may know, the Church Year, or Liturgical Year as it is more properly called, is divided into distinct periods of time much like our calendar year. The cycles of our calendar year are, of course, winter, spring, summer, and fall easily definable seasons with our changing weather here in the “North Country”. Two of the periods of the Liturgical Year are pretty easy to define as well because of the great feasts around which they are based: Christmas and Easter. We call these two seasons the Incarnation Cycle, which includes Advent and Christmas, and the Paschal Cycle, which includes Lent and Easter. The well known theological content of these two
