On the Monday after the Feast of Pentecost (May 23) the Church returned to the liturgical season called Ordinary Time. The other seasons are Advent, Christmas, Lent, Holy Week and Easter. As we can see from the image, the greater part of the Church Year is spent in Ordinary Time. Isn't that true for life in general? Most of us don't have a lot of "major feasts" or "high points" in our lives. However, the way we respond to the everyday tasks of life and our responsibilities to God, our families, Communities, friends, employers, etc. as well as the way we treat the people with whom we come in contact, that is what defines us, not the 'high points" of our lives.
It is so appropriate that as we reenter Ordinary Time, the daily Gospel readings are from the Sermon on the Mount. On Monday we heard the Beatitudes in which Jesus tells us what makes us truly happy. Yesterday we heard that we are the "salt of the earth", that we should "let our light shine and not place it under a bushel basket". Some of the people whose light has shone for me in my life have been people who are unknown to most of the world, and truly have very little, but have lived their ordinary lives in such an extraordinary way that they absolutely radiate joy. They are the "salt of the earth"; they live out the Sermon on the Mount; they are no Ordinary People.
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