The Liturgy of the Word in Ordinary Time
This weekend we celebrate the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, a time I did not really understand until recently. Ordinary — from the word ordinal, or numbered — is how the Church helps us count the weeks outside of the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. The readings for today draw our attention to this time of the liturgical year and give us renewed ways to engage with God’s word.
The first reading, from Nehemiah, describes a time when the people of Israel are returning from exile to their homeland, which had been destroyed. We see Ezra opening the scroll and reading to the men and women, and to those children old enough to understand. Ezra re-acquaints the people with God’s word and teaches them again that, despite the destruction of Jerusalem, God’s covenant remains with them. Those listening and hearing this are profoundly moved and respond in the only way possible: they prostrate themselves before the Lord, “their faces to the ground.” We later hear that the people even weep at what they have heard.
When I am at Mass, do I reverence the Word of God in this way? When the words of scripture are being proclaimed, am I attentive to what God is trying to reveal to me? While literally putting my face to the ground and weeping would likely put the focus only on me, I hope I am being attentive to God the way I am engrossed with his word.
In today’s second reading, Paul tells the community of Corinth that we are all parts of the one Body of Christ. “For in one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body…we were all given to drink of one Spirit.” All of us have our own gifts and talents to share with the community. When the gifts of bread and wine are presented at the Offertory, we are also presenting our gifts and selves to God along with our prayer intentions, as if to say with the priest, “Pray, … that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.” Then in the eyewitness testimony of Luke’s Gospel, we see Jesus announce his ministry and message: “He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.’” During the Eucharistic Prayer, we recount the events of the Last Supper. When the body and blood of Christ are elevated at the end of the Eucharistic prayer, it is our opportunity to glimpse heaven and to receive the grace that God wants for us to sustain us in our everyday life. To which we respond, “Amen.”
Let’s hope to stay attentive during these Sundays of Ordinary Time, because the Liturgy of the Word will always be more than ordinary.
–Cathy Wanner
Send Us Forth are reflections written by St. Matthew parishioners and friends.