Ordinary Time

What it is

Ordinary Time (Tempus per annum) is the portion of the liturgical year outside the privileged seasons of AdventGlossaryThe four-week season preparing for Christmas—watching for Christ's coming in history, in grace, and at the end of time., ChristmasGlossaryThe feast of the Nativity and its season—God born in the flesh, prolonged through the octave and Christmastide., LentGlossaryThe forty-day penitential season before Easter—fasting, prayer, and almsgiving in preparation for the Passion and Resurrection., and EasterGlossaryThe feast of the Resurrection and its fifty-day season—Christ risen, through the octave to Pentecost.. The vestments are typically green. The name comes from ordinal—numbered weeks—not from "mundane" or "unimportant." These weeks order the Church's meditation on Christ's public ministry and the growth of the baptized in the life of grace.

What it is not

Ordinary Time is not a liturgical waiting room. It is not "when nothing is happening." It is not inferior to Lent as if holiness were seasonal only. The same Christ is proclaimed; the calendar simply changes its emphasis.

How a Catholic encounters it

You encounter Ordinary Time for much of the year: Sunday Gospels walking through Matthew, Mark, or Luke; weekdayGlossaryA weekday in the liturgical calendar that is not a feast—kept with ferial (weekday) Mass texts rather than a saint's proper. Masses grinding sanctity into routine. Keep the Sundays. Read the weekday readings when you can. Do not wait for Ash Wednesday to begin again—Ordinary Time is where most of a man's fidelity is proven.