Prayer is about our relationship to God. Like any relationship, it requires time. Some of us are used to praying on the run, but our relationship with God cannot flourish unless we find time to be fully present to God: speaking and listening to one another, sharing silence or beauty, delight or sorrow. Intimacy grows when we invest in this kind of quality time—both in terms of human relationships and in our relationship with God. There is truth in the familiar phrase, “If we’re too busy to pray, we’re too busy.”
We must pray for no less a reason than our life depends on it. Jesus promised to give us life, abundant life, yet we will only realize this promise when we live in sync with God on God’s terms, on God’s time. Talking about God and time is a paradox: Time is created by God, yet God isn’t subject to time. God is timeless, however we can only experience God in time. And, miraculously, we do! There are moments in our life when we actually get in touch with the timelessness of God. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” God comes to us in time and space, in the now. This is why moments of prayer and worship are so important: In the midst of time, we actually perceive the Timeless that intersects the now. Prayer opens the space needed for that encounter.
Ordinary Time
Ordinary Time is the part of the liturgical calendar that falls outside the major seasons such as Advent, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter. Ordinary time begins after Pentecost and continues until the First Sunday of Advent, and is the longest season of the church year. The term ordinary may be derived from “ordinal,” which means “counted,” though this is disputed. It may simply mean ordinary. This isn’t necessarily negative. It’s simply the time of the year when we are not commemorating the major events in the life of Jesus—such as his birth, death, and resurrection—but rather the things he said and did throughout his time on earth. The liturgical color of this season is green, which is why it is sometimes called “the green season.” Green often symbolizes growth. During this season, the church delves deeper into scripture and the life of Jesus. We read his parables and remember how he changed the lives of everyone he interacted with, in ways big and small. This is a time when we explore what it means to live daily in faith, a time of growth as we explore everyday sacredness.