Said no one ever.
While we count down to Christmas, fast through Lent, proclaim Alleluia, He is risen! for fifty days of Easter, we often pass through Ordinary Time without care, without notice, losing track of what week we are even in. (We're in week four, by the way.) Ordinary Time does not celebrate big, shiny, theologically profound, earth-shattering events. No incarnation. No death on a cross. No resurrection. While the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops defines Ordinary Time with great enthusiasm, as the time of conversion... time for growth and maturation, a time in which the mystery of Christ is called to penetrate ever more deeply into history until all things are finally caught up in Christ, the title applied to this season doesn't quite translate that excitement and profundity. However, the problem is not that the Church picked the wrong word, but that we have distorted its meaning.
Today, ordinary often implies blasé, insignificant, unmemorable. People are constantly trying to beat the odds, to be above everyone else. Ordinary doesn't make a difference in the world. Ordinary doesn't get into the best schools. Ordinary doesn't get the best jobs. Ordinary doesn't get the best husband or wife. Ordinary is lazy. Ordinary is unacceptable. The cultural narrative is that extraordinary is a choice - the right choice - and everything else is mediocrity. Extraordinary is all that matters, and one should be extraordinary all the time. Countless articles and self-help books and movies and books and dating platforms perpetuate this dehumanizing lie.
The desire to be extraordinary can stem from a good place, from a desire to grow and improve. However, the myth - the lie- of the extraordinary conflates ordinariness with stagnation, which simply isn't so. As the bishops say, ordinary time is a time for growth. Finding ways to grow in fullness, in virtue, in our ordinariness is the challenge we as humans - and in the Catholic imagination, as saints - face.
In contrast to the cultural lie, the Church realistically places the extraordinary and ordinary in relationship with each other. The extraordinary and the ordinary work together, each in its turn growing and diminishing, giving meaning to each other and thus, to life. As a liturgical season, Ordinary Time celebrates humanity, both the humanity of Jesus - His life and times - and the humanity of His disciples - you and me. Just as the joy of Christmas and the penance of Lent reinvigorate our faith and stamina for the rest of the spiritual year, so too should personal moments of triumph or learning or even failure enlighten the years of our lives, and underpin the meaning of our humanity and of our ordinariness.
The truth is, while we can experience extraordinary moments, we can never be extraordinary. Only God can be truly extraordinary - beyond ordinary - because only God is beyond human. We may try, but we will always fail. Jesus, who shares in our humanity, shares in our ordinary time, but we can only marvel at his extraordinary time. The cultural lie tells us this is not fair; tells us to be gods; tells us our humanity is not worthwhile. On the other hand, the Church, the liturgical year, and the Incarnation itself tell us the ordinary - the human - is full; is holy; is good; is enough.
The Catholic Church is not alone in her defense of the ordinary. Musicals like Pippin and Company, books like The Lord of the Rings and Crime and Punishment, even TV sitcoms show that the ordinary life is one worth living. Some characters, like Raskolnikov and Pippin, admit to cultural pressures to be extraordinary, to be better than others, beyond themselves, but in the end, bravely resolve and proclaim that the ordinary is enough. Others, like Frodo, immediately recognize themselves as ordinary, but know they are capable of doing extraordinary things for the good of others. These voices remind us to truly dwell in our humanity. Allow these voices of truth to drown out the myth and the lie perpetuated by so many others. Allow ordinary to have its time.
No, we cannot be extraordinary, but we can live an ordinary life extraordinarily well. Our humanity is worth celebrating, worth focusing on. If the Church recognizes that, it's high time we do, too.
Well, this is an extraordinary insight into the ordinary, and very well written. Thanks for inspiring us to realize the possibilities of our everyday lives, which in themselves are actually somewhat extraordinary by God's design....within the framework of our "ordinary" humanity.
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