WEDNESDAY HOMILY: Christ Makes the Ordinary Extraordinary

He had to become like his brothers and sisters in every way, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest before God to expiate the sins of the people.  Because he himself was tested through what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.

style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; font-family: Georgia; color: #323333; text-align: justify;">HYTHE, KENT, UK (Catholic Online) - "I just don't like it.  Why do we have to have boring time?"  "You mean ordinary time?"  "Yeah that.  It is just so ordinary."

Many people are like the little boy with whom I had the above conversation.  No manger scene.  No ashes.  No special alleluias.  Boring time.

Ordinary time is really a misnomer.  It really means ordered time - time of the year ordered to Jesus Christ, and time centered around the most amazing and exciting person ever is never boring, especially in this year of faith.

I mean look at today's readings.  The Lord Jesus is casting out devils, healing the sick, and he even take's Simon Peter's mother-in-law by the hand and in so doing gets rid of her fever.  Just an ordinary time for the Lord.

"To make ordinary things extraordinary and the ordinary extraordinary," as St John Bosco would say of God.  Everything we do with God, even though it be the small and simple things of life become quite profound and powerful, yet miraculous things like being healed of diseases or casting out demons are quite run-of-the-mill for Jesus.

Yet this is what he is doing all the time in the life of the Church.  Jesus is alive and active through the sacraments and grace of the Church.

Faith is the mystery that sees Christ working in ordinary ways every day.  In this year we should make acts of faith in God's action within the Church, even through ordinary people like bishops and priests, that God is directing and leading us, and that he is working through the sacraments to do the extraordinary work of sanctifying us.

Some would say that ordinary time is made extraordinary by the extraordinary form of the mass.  Yes this is true.  If you haven't yet, attend a Latin mass in the usus antiquior, the ancient Latin rite of our faith that is anything but ordinary.  See what God does.

May Our Lady, the Mother of the Church, bring forth by her powerful intercession a harvest of faith in the daily workings of the Church, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

Father Samuel Medley, SOLT, is a priest of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, and is currently based in Hythe, Kent, United Kingdom.  He is a speaks to groups around the world on Blessed Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body.  Visit his homily blog http://medleyminute.blogspot.com or his blog on sexual ethics http://loveandresponsibility.org 

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