A CALL TO PARTICIPATE IN THE HIDDEN LIFE OF JESUS
Ordinary Time is a season within the Catholic Church that is far too easily overlooked. Right after Christmas and before Lent, there doesn’t seem to be anything special about it. It’s just so very “ordinary.”
As January draws to a close, we all have probably returned to school or work and back to that normal, everyday routine that makes up most of our year. Perhaps you have felt the excitement of Christmas fade and are ready for a break before the next big celebration. Or maybe you are eager for that next big holiday- the next adventure.
As for me, when I go to Mass each Sunday this time of year, I find myself just counting off to the next big thing. The Second Sunday of Ordinary Time… The Third Sunday of Ordinary Time… Until finally we make to Ash Wednesday. Then the ball really gets rolling. I find myself almost anxious about these weeks and awkwardly going through the motions until the extraordinary times. In the past, I have completely written off this season of Ordinary Time as just a space filler before Lent.
However, recently, I have felt God consistently ask me this question:
Samantha, what’s so wrong with the ordinary?
He Became Man
I am currently pursuing a Master’s in Catholic Theology with the Augustine Institute, and this past semester, I took a class on the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds that completely changed the way I think about “the ordinary.” These are prayers I have known since childhood and have recited weekly, or even daily for as long as I can remember. Yet as we went through these prayers line by line, there was one article of faith in particular that struck me in a new way:
“For us men and for our salvation, He came down from heaven and by the power of the Holy Spirit, became man.”
I know and believe that Jesus Christ died to save you and me from our sins. We affirm this fact in the Creed. But I want you to take a moment to realize that before we even mention that, we bow our heads and say, “For us men and for our salvation… he became man.” This is because while Jesus Christ’s saving work was consummated on the cross, it did not start there. It started at the moment of his conception when, after his mother’s resounding yes, he became man.
Salvation is more than freedom from our sins. In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church defines salvation as both “the forgiveness of sins and restoration of friendship with God, which can be done by God alone” (CCC Glossary, emphasis added).
When the Son of God became man, He allowed humanity to encounter Him and share the human experience with Him. As true God and true man, He revealed the face of God to us and invited us into friendship because He knew that “this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ” (John 17:3).
The Son of God knew that we needed to be saved from our sins, but salvation was never just about freedom from evil. It was about freedom to enter into friendship with Him. Freedom to be His child, His friend. Freedom to know and love Him.
His whole entire earthly life was this saving work – that we might enter into communion with Him.
The Hidden Life
Jesus is True God and True Man. He is the perfect example of human life and shows us what it means to be human. So as we learn about Jesus Christ, we are also learning about ourselves and who we were created to be.
When I first heard this, I immediately thought of the big stories from Jesus’ life. His endless traveling, speaking and teaching hundreds of people on a daily basis, healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead… Not to mention His Passion, Death, and Resurrection.
How is my life supposed to look like that?
What I failed to recognize was that Jesus’ whole entire life was his saving work. This includes the thirty out of thirty-three years of his life that he spent at home in Nazareth with his parents being an ordinary man living an ordinary life. Even these hidden years are part of our salvation and they make up the majority of His life.
We only have a handful of stories to fill in the years between His birth and His public ministry, but the Catechism summarizes them by saying, “During the greater part of his life Jesus shared the condition of the vast majority of human beings: a daily life spent without evident greatness, a life of manual labor” (CCC 531).
Through his hidden life at Nazareth, Jesus invites us to enter into a relationship with him – He offers us salvation – in every single moment. Eternal life is this communion.
Eternal Life Now
If eternal life is communion with Jesus, then it does not just start when we die. Although we cannot recognize it’s perfection here on earth, eternal life encompasses now. Theologian Frank Sheed explains in his book, Theology and Sanity, “Eternity does not mean time open at both ends, time stretching away back into the past with no beginning, stretching forward into the future with no ending… Eternity is not time” (Sheed, 67). God “lives in the eternal now” (Sheed, 68).
Through His Incarnation, Jesus Christ invites us to know him who is eternal now. Obviously, we are very much in time, but salvation is not a gift to be redeemed or accepted when we pass from this life. It is a gift of communion that we can begin to participate in now. Let us not forfeit that and disregard His presence. Let us pursue that communion with Him in order to have a taste of the perfection that waits for us in eternal life.
As my professor, Dr. Elizabeth Klein said in class, Jesus Christ sanctified everyday life – even the most ordinary life – because He lived it. We need not be afraid of the everyday. We need not think of Ordinary Time as the countdown to something greater. Something – someone – greater is already here.
I encourage you to remember that because every day of Jesus’ life was part of his saving work, every day of your life is an opportunity to enter into communion with Him. Whether you’re saving lives, speaking to a crowd of thousands, doing the laundry or your calculus homework… Every day is an opportunity to recognize your salvation and enter into eternal life.
From my heart to yours,
Samantha
