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What Is Ordinary Time?

St. Stephen Presbyterian Church follows a Common Lectionary which provides specific scripture readings for each Sunday and festival in a three-year cycle. These texts were selected by an ecumenical group of scholars, The Consultation on Common Texts (CCT), and provide for a disciplined use of the whole range of scripture in the church’s worship. It also creates a greater sense of connectionalism to the greater Church. On any given Sunday, churches which observe this common lectionary hear the same scriptures read and proclaimed in many parts of the world.

The use of the term “ordinary” in this manner means that which is standard, normative, usual or typical. In our observance of the Christian Year (Liturgical Year), Ordinary Time includes two distinct segments which together comprise the majority of the Christian Year: the time between Epiphany and Lent, and the time between Pentecost and Advent. For example, a few years ago the “Fifth Sunday after Epiphany,” or the “Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost,” was how the liturgical date was identified. However, neither Epiphany nor Pentecost are seasons. Each is a single day. This misunderstanding tended to distort the nature of these two periods in the liturgical calendar. The periods following Epiphany and Pentecost do not center upon a dominant event or theme.

Week after week, Sunday ordinarily celebrates the resurrection and the unfolding of the new creation. The standard for worship is, therefore, the ordinary time of Sunday in the week-to-week progression of time. Ordinary Time presents us with an ongoing opportunity to witness to the living Lord who makes all things new.

Twice each year Ordinary Time is heightened by the extra-ordinary time of the Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter cycles. They are extra-ordinary in that they intensify the foundational doctrines of incarnation and resurrection. The liturgical contribution of these cycles is to supplement the “ordinaries” of worship with additional or seasonally reflective elements, known as the “propers.” This interruption of Ordinary Time by the Christmas and Easter cycles results in two segments of Ordinary Time. Thus Ordinary Time is a period of from four to nine weeks following Epiphany (January 6) and a period of 23 to 28 weeks following Pentecost, both segments calculated from the variable date of Easter.

At the beginning and end of each of these periods are transitional Sundays that move the church from what has preceded to what is to follow. The first two Sundays that follow Epiphany develop some of the emphases of Epiphany, namely, Jesus’ baptism on the Sunday immediately following Epiphany, and the marriage at Cana on the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Sunday that concludes this part of Ordinary Time, the Transfiguration of the Lord, serves as a transition to a focus upon what is to happen in Jerusalem, Christ’s dying and rising.

The Sunday that follows Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, underscores the Trinitarian nature of the Easter cycle that preceded it. The Sundays that conclude this part of Ordinary Time, and especially the final Sunday before Advent, (Christ the King Sunday) are eschatological (concerning the last judgment, final times) in character. These Sundays move the church toward Advent with its focus on the new age that is to come. . . . compiled by Mark Scott