[Pearls Ep 154: Preparing for Sunday.]
As we prepare for Sunday, in yesterday’s message we noted the Gospel reading is an encapsulation of Jesus’ entire mission of salvation – the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
This becomes even clearer in light of Sunday’s first reading, “Now the LORD has spoken, who formed me as his servant from the womb … It is too little, the LORD says, for you to be my servant … I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
God’s plan of salvation stretches back to the dawn of creation.
Our God is a God of order.
Latin for order is ordinalis.
And that is where we get Ordinary Time.
It’s not Ordinary as in humdrum, nothing-to-see-here, please pass the remote. It is Ordinary as in ordered. As we describe in this week’s Pearls episode in more detail, if new to you, Ordinary Time marks the expanses of time between the end of Christmas and start of Lent, and the end of Easter and start of Advent. And it is ordered by numerically keeping track of the weeks – the 1st Week of Ordinary Time, 2nd Week, and so on through to the 33rd or 34th Week (depending on the year and length of Advent).
Ordinary Time, especially coming off the hustle and bustle of Christmas and New Years, is an excellent time to restore order to our lives, to return to a daily routine.
The need for order, structure and routine is part of our human nature – and as we looked at the Pearls episode – the orderliness of Ordinary Time is an important spiritual season for our spiritual growth.
In Day 21 of 30 Days to Christian Meditation we give an approach to creating a Plan of Life, as part of our overall approach to meditation, that you might find helpful for prioritizing your time, talent and energy. You can download that chapter of the book from this link. Note that the book includes an allegory of nomads being led by a Savior, which explains the opening section of the chapter….
[On a side note, Interior Life will soon be launching an online community with straightforward teachings and support on growing our interior life, such as building a Plan of Life and Daily Rhythm – stay tuned…]
In next week’s posts we’ll look at two other ways to make the most of Ordinary Time.
For this weekend we pray you find inspiration for simple and achievable ways to add order to your life so you can better experience Christ’s plan for you.
Steve and Karen Smith
Interior Life