What is Ordinary Time and the Season of Emergence?

The church has its own calendar of seasons, which have nothing to do with the weather! It is referred to as the liturgical year. Within such a calendar every day has a vital, and traditionally sacred, place, relative to the birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection of  Jesus Christ - and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, empowering us with Jesus' ministry 'on the ground - day-by-day'. 

The basic structure of the liturgical year is the four holy seasons punctuated by an exclamation point:  Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and ! - the Day of Pentecost. Following these holy seasons is what is called Ordinary Time. It is most commonly represented by the colour green and is the longest season of the liturgical year.

For the church 'Ordinary' does not mean “boring time where nothing interesting happens.” Just the opposite: in Ordinary Time, which is better termed The Season of Emergence (Bruce Sanguin's term), is when we meet Jesus again for the first time (Marcus Borg), and ask ourselves afresh what it means to live and grow and learn from that relationship daily.

The term 'Ordinary' derives from the word “ordinal,” as in “numbered”—and, indeed, the Sundays that fall within Ordinary Time are often designated in such ways as The Third Sunday after Pentecost or Season of Emergence: Second Sunday after Pentecost.

During Ordinary Time we think about what Christ means to the entirety of our lives. It is, after all, during the “ordinary times” of our life that Christ can, and should, mean as much to us as he does at any other. It is in the "ordinary times" that we learn to walk in the Spirit and grow in the fruits of the Spirit.