Ordinary Time: The Magic of Monday Mornings
June 1, 2026
Pentecost always falls on a Sunday, which means Ordinary Time always begins on a Monday morning.
Isn’t that that strangely fitting? Maybe a bit ironic?
There’s no fancy procession and no dramatic liturgy. No poinsettias, no lilies, no candles, trumpets broadcasting the announcing the arrival of a new season.
It’s just Monday.
The hot water still needs to boil for the pour-over coffee. The pile of laundry is growing, the car needs to be filled up, and nobody knows what we’re making for supper tonight.
And somehow that feels exactly right.
The Season Nobody Notices
The calendar is full of seasons that capture our attention. Advent arrives with anticipation, Christmas with celebration. Ash Wednesday and Lent bring reflection, followed by Easter’s arrival with resurrection. A flurry of wind and fire announce Pentecost.
But Ordinary Time?
Ordinary Time slips in quietly while we’re loading the dishwasher. In fact, most people don’t even notice when ordinary time begins.
Which is oddly appropriate, because most of our lives are often composed of days we barely notice while we’re living them.
We remember vacations, weddings, funerals, graduations, holidays, and milestone birthdays.
But life itself?
Life tends to happen in the spaces between those events. On ordinary Tuesday mornings when the sunrise is breathtaking and rainy Thursday afternoons when the grass needs to be mowed. On Friday nights spent watching a movie while we’re folding towels and matching socks.
The Fancy Dress and the Comfy Clothes
I recently ordered a pair of wide-legged floaty pants — lightweight for summer, but nothing super-special — just ordinary clothes for ordinary days. Buying clothes for ordinary days has me thinking about we dress for special occasions.
Christmas has its ugly sweaters, and Easter has dresses and bonnets. Graduations feature gowns and mortarboard caps. Weddings are all about gowns of a different sort. But the common theme is that celebrations all seem to have costumes of one kind or another.
But as excited as we are to dress up, we’re equally excited at the end of the day to come home and change into our comfortable clothes — the clothes we actually live in. The old favorites we love and wear and wear and wear.
Maybe that’s what Ordinary Time is? The comfy-clothes season of the church year.
Ordinary time doesn’t matter less than feasts and festivals. In fact, to the contrary, maybe it matters more because ordinary time is where we settle in and stop posing for the camera. It’s when we stop preparing for big events and find the real magic moments where we simply live.
Where Growth Happens
And that’s the funny thing about growth. It rarely happens during the dramatic moments, but in the aftermath.
I’m rethinking the flower beds in the front yard, so I planted two yellow knockout rose bushes and two puffer fish hydrangeas. They don’t grow just because I planted them. They’re growing because of what’s happened afterward. A slow soaking rain followed by the sun breaking through the clouds. The waiting as the bushes begin to establish their roots.
The unnoticed accumulation of small things.
The same is true for quilts. And gardens. And marriages. And friendships. And faith.
The dramatic moments may point us in a direction, but growth requires time.
The Magic We Miss
I wonder if one of the reasons we struggle with Ordinary Time is because we keep waiting for something special —the extraordinary — to happen.
We imagine that meaning quality living require BIG moments. The lavish vacation. The over-the-top holidays. The milestones and their celebrations.
Meanwhile, life quietly unfolds all around us.
Seeds sprout.
Children grow up.
Friendships deepen.
Healing happens.
Wisdom grows.
Skills develop.
Books get written.
Quilts get stitched.
Gardens bloom.
Not overnight, not dramatically, but steadily. Ordinary Time isn’t the season between meaningful moments. It’s where meaningful moments are made. Ordinary Time makes the meaningful moments possible.
A Question and an Invitation
A Question: What ordinary part of your life are you tempted to overlook because it doesn’t seem exciting enough?
An Invitation: This week, pay attention to something ordinary — the morning coffee, getting the mail, a bee on a bloom in the garden, getting the groceries, waiting at a stoplight, the laundry, or a conversation you’ve had a hundred times before.
You don’t have to push to turn ordinary into extraordinary — just notice it! Because the truth is, most of life happens here in plain old ordinary (but really magical) time.
With you in the growing,
