As we enter so-called “ordinary time”, we must remember that no one is calling the liturgical year “ordinary”. This is one of those unfortunate translations from a different language, which doesn’t work so well in English. Without getting into the nitty gritty details, the term “ordinary time” is based on a numbering system, and it is not meant to be a judgement of quality.
In fact, the liturgy is quite extraordinary. The Catechism teaches that the liturgy is the participation of the People of God in “the work of God”.[1] Liturgy, then, is the working of things which relate to God. While Christ the Head is the one who celebrates the liturgy through the ministry of the priest, all of the baptized are in members of the Body of Christ which is the Church. So we are all a part of this amazing reality.
How can any of this be ‘ordinary’? After all, we just celebrated Christmas – the birth of the God-man Jesus Christ. Not a very ordinary thing if you ask me. Scripture and Tradition reveal to us that Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb of God, is at once “the high priest”, the one who “offers” and the one who is “offered”, the one who both “gives” and is given.[2] Christ is at the very center of all of this.
For this reason, the Eucharist is the “source and summit” of Christian life.[3] “It is the mystery of Christ that the Church proclaims and celebrates in her liturgy so that the faithful may live from it and bear witness to it in the world”.[4]
Not so ordinary, if you ask me!
[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1069.
[2] CCC 1137
[3] CCC 1324
[4] CCC 1067
Fr. Connor