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Beloved in Christ,

We are now in Ordinary Time in the Church’s worship cycle. This means we have journeyed through the full arc of the Church’s calendar year, and it is worth pausing to retrace that journey together.

It began with Advent, the start of the Church’s calendar year, when we celebrated the Lord’s promised coming. We used the color purple to express humility as we waited for Christ’s coming to earth to save humanity.

Then, on Christmas Day, the world received Christ’s birth through the womb of Mary, God’s servant — not in a palace or even a comfortable home, but among animals in a stable. There was nothing lofty to boast of in His earthly family or in the circle of those who would first follow Him. And this was no secret affair: it took place amid a very public Roman event, the census ordered to collect taxes from citizens (Luke 2:1–3).

Guided by a star, the Magi found their way to the place of the Christ child’s birth. Though they were outsiders, not God’s covenant people, they came to worship Him, and their gifts — gold, frankincense, and myrrh — quietly bore witness to who He was: a King, truly God, and the One destined for death and burial. Their visit and the light Christ brought into the world through it are what we celebrate as Epiphany.

In the season that followed, we marked the Baptism of the Lord, when Christ was baptized by John in the River Jordan and anointed by the Spirit for the ministry ahead of Him. Then, on Ash Wednesday, we were marked with ashes — traditionally made from the previous year’s palm branches — as a sign of humility and repentance. This ushered us into the forty-day discipline of Lent, a season for examining the past and renewing our resolve as God’s faithful servants, leading us through Holy Week.

Good Friday tells us that the purpose of Christ’s ministry was fulfilled when He was despised, crucified, and died on the cross to set humanity free from sin and the second death spoken of in Revelation 20:14. So that His body would not remain on the cross when the High Sabbath — a “high day” — began, He was placed in the tomb (John 19:31–34), in keeping with the law:

“If someone guilty of a capital offense is put to death and their body is exposed on a pole, you must not leave the body hanging on the pole overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 21:22–23, NIV)

He remained in the tomb until the dawn of Sunday, when He rose from the dead. For forty days, the risen Christ appeared to His disciples before ascending into heaven on the fortieth day. Ten days later — fifty days after the Resurrection — He sent the Holy Spirit upon the Church, the event we know as Pentecost (Acts 2:1–11). The following Sunday, seven days after Pentecost, we celebrated Trinity Sunday.

And now, after Trinity Sunday, we enter Ordinary Time. Worship continues in like manner over three years — Years A, B, and C — and through that cycle the treasures of Scripture are opened more fully to the faithful, until we begin again with a new Advent.

Ordinary Time is not a pause in the story — it is the season in which we live out everything we have just remembered: the humility of Advent, the lowliness of the manger, the light of Epiphany, the discipline of Lent, the victory of the cross and the empty tomb, and the power of the Spirit poured out at Pentecost. May this season find us walking faithfully in that light.

Grace and peace to you all.