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Finding the "Extraordinary" in Ordinary Time

Finding the "Extraordinary" in Ordinary Time



As Catholics, Ordinary Time is the part of the liturgical season that is not Advent, the Christmas season, Lent, Triduum, Easter or the Easter season. As a season, it can be 33 to 34 weeks long, making it the longest liturgical season in the church calendar! So, what do you do during this long liturgical season? Ordinary Time is the perfect opportunity to grow in your own spirituality and help your family’s domestic church flourish and grow in faith. You can, in a sense, view Ordinary Time as the “preparation time” offered to you and your family to help you prepare your hearts, minds, and souls as you enter the most important liturgical seasons of the church. 

So don’t shrug Ordinary Time off just because it’s not Lent or Easter, because Ordinary Time is not really “ordinary” at all, but rather important and an “extraordinary” gift for growth and preparation. Jesus spent time preparing before his public ministry began, and by doing so, I believe he shows us the importance of preparation in our own faith lives. When we spend time preparing, we grow in our depth of understanding of the faith and allow the seeds of faith planted within us to grow, flourish, and produce good fruit.

So how can you and your family make the most of Ordinary Time? Here are just a few of the ways my family and I have been preparing our hearts, minds and souls as we spent time building our domestic church during the COVID quarantine.  

Reading: 

  • My husband and I read the book, Consecration to Saint Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father, by Father Donald Calloway, and consecrated ourselves to Saint Joseph on March 19th (Saint Joseph’s Feast Day) this year. This is a beautiful book that helped us to grow in our understanding of Saint Joseph as a person and as a spiritual father in Heaven to help bring us closer to Jesus. I definitely recommend reading this book if you haven’t.
  • We've read various Bible stories to our children. Reading various picture books containing Bible stories from both the Old and New Testaments, has brought about some wonderful faith conversations between us and our children.
Celebrating Saints: 
  • We began celebrating the feast days of saints more regularly, through food and crafts, to become inspired by how we can grow in faith and work towards saintliness. This has also helped me learn about different saints I may not have been familiar with before as I researched who they were and food recipes from the countries they were from.
Prayer and Reflection: 
  • We’ve been learning new prayers to say at bedtime—for example: The Guardian Angel Prayer, the Prayer of St. Ignatius, and Prayers from St. Therese of Lisieux. 
  • We’ve started praying a Divine Mercy Prayer together as a family at or around 3:00pm each day. Most days this works, sometimes, however, we’re not successful so we try again the next day.
  • We built a Mary Garden in our backyard and are working on adding stepping stones to make a decade of the rosary around our statue of Mary. We currently have mums around our statue of Mary and plan to add seasonal flowers that will come back each year. It’s been nice having an outside prayer/reflection space, and seeing our children help take care of the flowers. 
  • We have a prayer corner in our home that we’ve had for a while—honestly, we need to utilize it more often than we do—but it’s great to know we have a specific place inside our home to pray.
  • We’ve taken our children to adoration a few times during quarantine, and they’ve also seen my husband and I take turns going to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I know confession seems daunting to everyone. I mean who really wants to admit their sins out loud, right? But trust me, after you go to confession you will feel amazing! As a mom, one of my favorite analogies about confession is a quote I read in one of Father Donald Calloway's books. He said, "confession is a spiritual diaper change." I love this! I mean when I'm chasing down my two-year-old whose got on a pair of dirty pull-ups he doesn't want changed, I can't help but think we all must seem like toddlers to God, running away from our "confessional spiritual diaper changes;" and agree with Father Calloway, that we are either pretending we don't stink or being content to sit in "our spiritual dirty diapers." Father Calloway's analogy is awesome! Speaking of changing diapers, I've also found this task as a great way to offer up prayer for the conversion of sinners and reparation of sins agains the immaculate heart. No one wants to change a dirty diaper, so by offering up this small sacrifice as a prayer, what an amazing opportunity for grace you can turn a dirty diaper into.    

Celebrating Through a Craft:

Using construction paper, make an “Ordinary Time Tree” as a family. Brainstorm ways your family can grow in faith during Ordinary Time, and write them on each leaf. Hang your tree somewhere in your home where you will see it and be reminded of ways to grow all throughout the liturgical season.


As you and your family celebrate Ordinary Time, I hope you will look for the extraordinary ways you can continue to grow in your faith!

Additional Information on Ordinary Time:

United States Council of Catholic Bishops explanation of Ordinary Time.

Counting Ordinary Time from EWTN 

Books I’ve Recently Read, or Plan to Read, that I Recommend:

  • Divine Mercy in My Soul: Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska  
  • Divine Mercy for Moms, by Michele Faehnle and Emily Jaminet 
  • Do Something Beautiful for God: The Essential Teachings of Mother Teresa
  • 33 Days to Morning Glory, by Father Michael Gaitley. (I read this a couple of years ago—it's a consecration to Mary and is really good). 
  • Under the Mantel, by Father Donald Calloway (read this a couple of years ago—it's about Mary and really good!)
  • My husband and I are also planning to read 33 Days to Greater Glory, by Father Michael Gaitley, which is a consecration to God the Father.

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