Peg Tichacek (Wichita, Kansas USA)
September 12th, 2024 - Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center
In the Catholic Church, it is Ordinary Time. Advent and Christmas are over. Lent and Holy Week are over. The greatest feast, Easter, is over too! Ordinary Times.
The word ordinary speaks of routine and predictable. It speaks of peace and rest.
Does ordinary exist anymore? Is it ordinary that prayer continues at all the sites in the Holy Land and thousands of pilgrims are not there to join in? Is it ordinary that travel is down to a trickle after record crowds?
I’ve now postponed a pilgrimage to the Holy Land three times for three groups. These are pilgrims so anxious to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and see where he was born and visit the places where His love was poured out. They long to grow strong in faith and find grace for virtue.
Postponing pilgrimages has become ordinary. How does Does faith grow in such times?
Perhaps it is by looking at Jesus and seeing that being human was not ordinary for Jesus and walking in darkness or sacrificing His life was ordinary either. Perhaps it wasn’t ordinary because it was EXTRAORDINARY.
Does this invite us in Ordinary Times to follow His footsteps on this path too? His mother thought so. So did Mary Magdalene and the apostles. So they said YES as they surrendered ordinary and followed him into extraordinary.
Their pilgrimage was not postponed. It continues as does ours as we abide in Him and with Him and in the unity of the Holy Spirit. They entered EXTRAORDINARY and changed the world. So can we.