Why Do We Call It "Ordinary" Time?
Why do we call it "Ordinary Time"?
You may think that this season of the liturgical year, which will now extend until we reach Advent of 2015. is called ordinary because all the "extraordinary" feasts are completed. Not so.
This season is called Ordinary because of the way we mark it; namely, with "ordinal" numbers. We begin the 8th Week in Ordinary Time today. Think back to your days in elementary school when we learned the difference between Ordinal and Cardinal numbers. Ordinal numbers are the one with "st," "nd," and "th" behind them Cardinal numbers are the ones we use to count: 1, 2, 3, etc.
From now until we reach the 34th Week in Ordinary Time, we will use ordinal numbers to mark the progress of this season.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator
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