Prayer Reflection

 ORDINARY TIME

The Scripture Readings that we hear at Mass now are described as various weeks in Ordinary Time. The Church's liturgical year is divided into Advent, Christmas, Ordinary Time, Lent, Easter, Pentecost and again Ordinary Time. Usually about 30 or so of the 52 weeks of the year fall in Ordinary Time.

During the weeks of Ordinary Time most of the gospel readings are from the Public Life of Christ. The longest time of prayer in The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius is called The Second Week; and again, most of the prayers are on the Public Life of Christ.

Most of our own lives can usually be described as "ordinary time." We go about our family and work lives in an ordinary type of routine. In most lives there are "highs" like Christmas and Easter in the Church Year. But for the most part our days and years are marked by a certain sameness. The very routines of our lives provide us with opportunities for prayer. Jesus lived the majority of His life in an ordinary way and in a small town. He knows and understands our ordinary lives. The Second Week of The Spiritual Exercises invites us to take the ordinariness of our lives to the Lord in prayer. Saint Ignatius wants us to read and reflect about the gospel stories of Jesus' life so that we can put our own lives in a gospel perspective. He invites us to pray about the stories and incidents from Jesus' life in order to deepen our relationship with Jesus Christ and to draw strength from Him for our ordinary lives!