In volume four of The Church at Prayer, Fr. Pierre Jounel described Ordinary Time this way, “The thirty-four Sundays per annum or of Ordinary Time represent the ideal Christian Sunday, without any further specification. That is, each of them is the Lord’s Day in its pure state as presented to us in the Church’s tradition. Each is an Easter, each a feast” (p. 23). Now, squarely within the longer or summer portion of Ordinary Time—beginning on the Monday after Pentecost (June 5) and concluding on the Saturday after the last Sunday of the liturgical year, in the morning hours of December 2, following Christ the King, which are the majority of the Sundays of the year—the focus is on the pure mystery of Christ—not a specific aspect of the Lord’s life, but on what Jesus said and did in all its fullness or plenitude. You could say that Ordinary Time celebrates the Lord’s Day in its pure state; hence, it is legitimate to say that that longest period of the Liturgical Year must be the same theologically as the Lord’s Day itself.
Sunday is the prism through which the mystery of Christ is refracted—as the original feast, the Day of the Lord, the Eighth Day, which is the day of the new creation that transcends the seven-day weekly cycle and perfects it, the First Day of creation and recreation in Christ, the Day of Resurrection, and the Day of Encounter with the Risen Lord. When Sunday is understood as the day when the faithful encounter Christ, the weekend liturgy can be conceptualized in terms of a post-resurrection appearance of Christ, as was true in the period between Christ’s rising from the dead and His Ascension back to heavenly glory. In the apostolic letter Dies Domini, Saint John Paul II wrote that “Christians saw the definitive time inaugurated by Christ as a new beginning, they made the first day after the Sabbath a festive day…The Paschal Mystery of Christ is the full revelation of the mystery of the world’s origins, the climax of the history of salvation and the anticipation of the eschatological fulfillment of the world. What God accomplished in creation and wrought for his people in the Exodus found its fullest expression in Christ’s death and resurrection through which its definitive fulfillment will not come until the Parousia, when Christ returns in glory. In him, the spiritual meaning of the Sabbath is fully realized, as Saint Gregory the Great declares, ‘For us, the true Sabbath is the person of our Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ’” (DD, n. 18).
Thus, the end of the liturgical year—the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King—is the key to understanding Ordinary Time, because Sunday worship echoes the perfect praise found only in heaven. It is proleptically realized, which is equivalent to saying that the Sunday Eucharist is a heavenly event which God has determined as the point of contact between heaven and earth. The Mass, as a sacrificial memorial, brings heavenly life to earth and does so even now, in a time that precedes its fullness when Christ returns in glory.
Reconciling the Liturgical Calendar for the Beginning of 2024
In the liturgical calendar that was inaugurated after the Second Vatican Council, the period now known as Ordinary Time came into use. According to the Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year, “…there remain in the yearly cycle thirty-three or thirty-four weeks in which no particular aspect of the mystery of Christ is celebrated, but rather the mystery of Christ itself is honored in its fullness, especially on Sundays. This period is known as Ordinary time” (UNLYC, n. 43). Those same norms state, “Ordinary Time begins on the Monday which follows the Sunday occurring after January 6 and extends up to and including the Tuesday before the beginning of Lent…” In almost every year, that would refer to the date for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. However, this year was different since Christmas was observed on a Monday, so some adjustment was necessary.
The other observance is Epiphany, whose date is governed by whether or not it is observed as a Holy Day of Obligation or not. Number 37 of the UNLYC says, “The Epiphany of the Lord is celebrated on January 6, unless, where it is not observed as a Holyday of Obligation, it has been assigned to the Sunday occurring between January 2-8 (cf. no. 7).” Well, this year Epiphany ended up being observed on January 7th. While that date qualifies as being on the Sunday after the sixth of January, according to the norms, “The Sunday falling after January 6 is the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord” (UNLYC, n. 38). The solution to that liturgical conundrum is that Epiphany takes the Sunday of January 7 and the Baptism of the Lord transferred to Monday, January 8. Finally, the shorter period of Ordinary Time will begin on Tuesday, January 9.
Never a First Sunday in Ordinary Time
Why isn’t there a first Sunday of Ordinary Time? You cannot say that Epiphany is part of Ordinary Time because it is officially part of Christmastime. Normally, the first Sunday of Ordinary Time is designated as the Baptism of the Lord, yet as mentioned above, that will be observed on Monday, January 8th this year. The explanation is based upon the fact that Sunday is the first day of every liturgical week. To call the Sunday, January 14, which is called the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, by the title the First Sunday of Ordinary Time would be to look backwards and not forward in the week, which is not the way liturgical time is meant to be understood. So in the Roman Missal the prayers for those days are listed under the “First Week of Ordinary Time,” while the prayers for every future week fall under the “xth Sunday of Ordinary Time.”
Nature and dignity 