We have plenty of excitement during the Church year. Easter and Christmas stand out, of course, but then we have Lent and my personal favorite, Advent. I have a special affection, though, for Ordinary Time.
There’s something about the simpler times in between the flashier liturgical seasons that speaks to me. We don’t need a Christmas tree or the trumpets of Easter to find extraordinary meaning in the everyday times of our lives. We can encounter God and grow in our faith even in the smaller, quieter moments. Truthfully, maybe that’s when the deepest growth happens.
Marking Ordinary Time in a pandemic might feel a little too ordinary. I’ve heard people compare this stay-at-home season of their lives to the movie Groundhog Day, where you wake up every day in the same situation, with the same problems, and the same experience to look forward to.
I can’t wait for the pandemic to end so we can interact with people in more normal ways. But every now and then I pause and look at our growing children, hear our finches chirping, look around at our lived-in house which is so very much a home, and listen as my husband taking care of chores in the basement, and I think how richly blessed we are to have these very ordinary moments during this time.
Even in a steady stream of ordinariness, I do love Ordinary Time.
The other night my husband asked me if I could make a chocolate pudding pie. I never think to make anything like that for us, and I’m not really sure why.
I happily added a graham cracker crust and box of pudding to our grocery list. It took about 10 minutes to combine the mix with milk and pour it into a crust. As I was making it, I thought, this is a very ordinary dessert—just right for Ordinary Time.
There’s no complex recipe. You take three ingredients and spend a few minutes, and the work is done. As ordinary as the prep work was, though, the pie itself was such a special treat. It was smooth and sweet and comforting and good.
Sometimes the simplest foods are just what we want, especially when your mind is full of issues related to a pandemic, a presidential inauguration with unprecedented security concerns, and so much else.
Don’t get me wrong. I love tiramisu and chocolate mousse and warm apple pie baked in a homemade crust and pretty much any fancy dessert you want to send my way. But in this Ordinary Time for the Church that seems to be anything but ordinary in so many other ways, there’s much to be said for simplicity.
And you can’t go wrong with chocolate pudding pie.
Now let’s pray for an ordinary week.
Joining Rosie at A Blog for My Mom for her “Just Because!” link-up.
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