Ordinary Time

Ordinary Time is the name for the weeks that are ordered by number rather than by a festal season. The English word “ordinary” here comes from ordinal, not from dull. These weeks are the Church’s school of discipleship. The vestments are green, the color of growth. The Gospel is read in course: Matthew in Year A, Mark in Year B, Luke in Year C. John is heard especially in Lent and Easter, and for a stretch in Mark’s year.

The season comes in two parts. The first begins the Monday after the Baptism of the Lord and runs until the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. It is short. The second and longer part begins the Monday after Pentecost and runs until the Saturday before the First Sunday of Advent. Solemnities such as Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart, the Assumption, All Saints, and Christ the King fall inside this stretch and interrupt the green weeks without ending them.

Sunday remains the original feast even in Ordinary Time. The numbered Sundays are the backbone of the year. Weekdays have their own two-year cycle of first readings. A memorial of a saint, when it occurs, is celebrated within the green season. It does not create a new season of its own.

The last Sunday is Christ the King. The following Sunday is Advent, and the numbers stop. Nothing in Ordinary Time is a placeholder. It is the time in which most of a Christian life is actually lived.