I'm over at Patheos today... the word is Ordinary Time -- but it's anything but!

From today's column, A Word in Season, a look beyond the ordinary:

The beauty and the richness of Ordinary Time, as seen in the perennial green vestments and décor, gently remind us that all life is now infused with grace. Like the evergreen amidst the winter snow, the life of faith is alive inside of us. Ordinary Time is steeped in the knowledge and the witness that we are not alone. That God is still with us. That this is good, but it is not all that will be. 

Ordinary Time brings with it a kind of daily hope, not only of "the more" to come in the afterlife, but of "the more" of God's Word and Presence that inhabits the everyday.  

The cry of John the Baptist in this Sunday's Gospel is the same reminder that we hear following the consecration at every Mass: 

        Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away this sin of the world! (Jn. 1:29) 

The extraordinary God comes to us under the ordinary auspices of bread and wine, by the power of his Word. The bread of heaven and the cup of salvation are now part of our ordinary circumstances. And though we may have witnessed this time and time again, it is anything but ordinary.

Read it all.