"Ordinary" Time

A perfect way to move from the Christmas Season into ordinary time is to celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord.  Jesus Himself started His ministry with the example of His baptism.  The fact that He did it publicly was His message to the world: If it is important enough that I should do it, it is important that you should do it also.

All four of the gospels speak of Jesus' baptism.  The book of Mark records that upon being baptized he saw "the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, 'You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.' "  All four gospels record the baptism in this manner. It must be extremely important. In fact, no one else in the river that day or any other received rays of light or voices or doves from the heavens. This was God's miraculous way of showing that Jesus' baptism was important indeed.

And so begins the life and works of Jesus...

Wedding at Cana

Very early on in the narrative that is the story of Jesus's life, John records that Mary and Jesus are guests at a wedding feast when the wine the family is serving runs out. Mary pleads to Jesus on behalf of the family, and Jesus turns all the water there at the feast into wine...thus beginning his public career as a miracle worker.

All the gospels record various stories of Jesus ministering to sick, blind, deaf, paralyzed, and even those who have just died.  He did not merely minister God's message to them...He healed them!  He brought them back to life when necessary. Perhaps my favorite of these is when Jesus heals the paralytic.  I love the idea that the man and his friends had such faith that Jesus would heal him, that they put him on the roof and lowered him down into the room where Jesus was speaking!  What effort!!!

May we all live our lives with the same effort to be in the room with Jesus. May we all trust him to heal us and lift our burdens when we are heavy.  May we never give up.

I use the term in the classroom "ordinary" lightly, because the life of Jesus is certainly no ordinary time.  Jordan and I use this break from seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter to focus on the miracles of Jesus, how we can apply these lessons to our lives today and to introduce students to the Luminous Mysteries of the rosary.

Join us for the next couple of weeks before Lent focusing on the miracles that Jesus performs.  Lean on Him when times are hard. Trust Him with the same effort as the faithful in these stories.

God Bless!