by Joan Mitchell, CSJ
This Sunday Catholics and other Christian churches begin the liturgical season called Ordinary Time. This is the part of the liturgical year that is not the Advent/ Christmas season or Lent/ Eastertime.
The Church calls these Sundays ordinary not because they are unspectacular but because the weeks are numbered with ordinal numbers. For instance, this Sunday is the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The 2nd through 8th Sundays in Ordinary Time happened in January and February. Ordinary Time begins in June at a date adjusted for Easter, one of the 9th–13th Sundays.
During Ordinary Time Christians hear stories about Jesus’ teaching and healing, his conversations with people he meets, his comparisons of God to ordinary activities in daily life like planting seeds. Each year in Ordinary Time we hear about Jesus’ life from a different one of the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
This year we read Luke’s version of Jesus’ good news. In Sunday’s Gospel we catch up with Jesus and his followers are they begin their journey to Jerusalem.
Journeys today are as likely to change and shape us as the journey with Jesus to Jerusalem changed and formed his disciples. People we meet, sights that stop us in our tracks, unexpected conversations live within us as continuing delights and sometimes compelling visions.
- Where are you on your journey with Jesus? Who have been your companions?
What do you see in this illustration? The ox is a symbol for Luke. His gospel begins with priest Zechariah in the Jerusalem temple, where Jews offered sacrifices. Oxen were one of the animals that could be sacrificed. The drawing illustrates two parables only Luke tells. In the center the father is welcoming his prodigal son home. At bottom right, the good Samaritan is helping a man left for dead.