Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus,
This Sunday is the 10th Sunday of Ordinary Time. Starting from Ash Wednesday (Feb. 14) we observed seasons of Lent and Easter. Then, two Sundays of the Most Holy Trinity and Corpus Christi, we are back to the Sundays of Ordinary Time. The ‘Ordinary’ in Ordinary Time does not refer to a season of dull routine, or unimportance. Because the term ordinary in English most often means something that's not special or distinctive, many people think that Ordinary Time refers to parts of the calendar of the Catholic Church that are unimportant. Rather than making a statement about degrees of importance, the term Ordinary Time refers to the order of Sundays in the church year that do not fall into the major liturgical seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, or Easter.
Technically, Ordinary Time has two parts, but it remains one season. The first part begins right after the feast of the Epiphany and runs until Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday (when Lent begins). The second part begins the Monday after Pentecost and runs until the First Sunday of Advent.
Christmas Time and Easter Time highlight the central mysteries of the Paschal Mystery, namely, the incarnation, death on the cross, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Sundays and weeks of Ordinary Time, on the other hand, take us through the life of Christ. This is the time of conversion. This is living the life of Christ. The richness of Ordinary Time is found in the opportunity to know Christ more intimately in the everyday realities of life. These are the days where we grow into who we are called to be by imitating the lived reality of Jesus. We are called to be active participants, participating in the everyday life of Jesus.
The schools are closed for summer vacation. I always remind our students that there is no vacation for spiritual life. It is a time to spend more time with God and with your family, to strengthen relationships, to read good books, to travel and to make pilgrimage, to prepare physically and mentally for the next academic year. I wish our children a happy and fruitful vacation.
God bless you all,
Fr. John Samuel
