Today is the first day of ordinary time. And I had a bit of a revelation about that. As I packed up the Christmas decorations, feeling a twinge of sadness at the holiday being over, I realized that we are made for the ordinary. Holidays and feast days are extraordinary - days the Chruch sets aside to give us strenth, to revive and renew us. We walk toward the extraordinary - Heaven - every day, and hope to spend eternity there one day. But here on earth, we are meant to be in the ordinary.
But it's not a sad yearning. We don't pack our grace away like Christmas decorations in boxes, never to be opened until the next year. These graces are meant to be carried with us, so that the ordinary is decorated all year long with the grace of the extraordinary. As with the mass, we are not meant to leave our faith in the church when we leave on Sunday, but to carry it with us into the world where we live - to change hearts, minds and lives, always beginning with our own.
Just as with Sunday mass, we know that we do not walk blindly without direction or purpose. Our daily journey always points pack to the extraordinary - to the Heavenly banquet we know will one day be ours for all eternity. Don't mourn the passing of the Christmas season. Carry it with you as you being to walk once again in ordinary time. Allow the mystery of Christ born as man to renew your heart every day, and carry that with you as you journey in your everyday life - your gaze always set on the extraordinary life that awaits, that we are so blessed to taste, if only in small glimpses here on earth.
May the grace of the Christmas season sustain us all, and renew each step we take on our earthly journey towards Heaven!
