Sunday is Everything: The Power of the Ordinary
“I couldn’t grasp all those exalted prayers packed with difficult words. There was lots of talking and so much kneeling. The truth is that the ordinary Sunday masses always seemed long and boring.”
Did you like going to Church as a child? I’m trying to recall masses from my childhood that I would look forward to attending with my parents and my memory immediately responds with images of feast gatherings celebrated in Poland over three decades ago.
We were great back then, marking significant events with all their festivity.
Advent Dawn Masses brightened dark and smoggy winter mornings with little lanterns carried to the Church through the icy wind. Somehow the want and need to care for a little paper lamp made of cheap tissues and a cartoon box got the seven-year-old me out of bed and attending dawn liturgies daily when preparing for Christmas.
Midnight nativity masses with their colourful lights and joyful carols, year after year, filled my heart with awe for a mystery. Though connecting Jesus being born two thousand years ago and us now eating a piece of white bread presented a challenge beyond my intellect, my soul learned to find hope in the invisible.
The ashes of Lent, the incense of Easter, the most unforgettable Corpus Christie processions, which turned streets into rugs of flowers: it was easy to be in Church on feast days.
The Sundays of the Ordinary Time, though, presented a struggle. If nothing festive happened, I still didn’t mind attending Church as long as I could sleep through homilies. Always happy to get an extra nap! However, requiring me to keep vigilance and total awakeness through the entire mass changed the game completely. Resentment emerged in my young heart, and I often rebelled against “wasting” the day in the Church.
I couldn’t grasp all those exalted prayers packed with difficult words. There was lots of talking and so much kneeling. Even when sitting, the pews seemed to encourage spontaneous repentance. The truth is that the ordinary Sunday masses always seemed long and boring. If they weren’t long, then they were just boring.
Yet if I now were to name one thing to be most grateful to my parents for, I’d choose their perseverance in bringing me to Church every Sunday. All four seasons, sunny weeks and cloudy ones, at home and away: celebrating Eucharist was just something we did as a family.
With all her long prayers and complicated symbols, this Church helped me to find an empowering love and gave me a new life.
Now, I’m in love with the Ordinary Time as it brings us God’s wholeness. It’s the most beautiful time, as it doesn’t blur God’s incredible completeness to focus on just one mystery. Sadly, the totalness of what we celebrate on weekly masses escapes our embodied realisation. We barely grasp what God invites us to when we approach His table, and we always have room to learn how to celebrate his presence in the most ordinary here, in the most powerful now.
