The blog posts are a little less frequent now that it’s Ordinary Time. There are actually two periods of Ordinary time, but the post-Christmas / pre-Lenten period is so short, our family really only marks this extended Ordinal period after Pentecost with green trappings around the house, less emphasis on devotions, and more emphasis on getting outdoors (which apparently precludes frequent blog posting). Even though we’re not contemplating the mysteries of the incarnation or the resurrection, there are still ways we sanctify this time as a family…

What is sanctifying time and why is it important? To me sanctifying time means to continually turn towards God no matter what one is doing. During the day, it means setting aside time for prayer. During the week it means Friday abstinence and a Holy Sabbath. During the month it means observing principal feasts, like St Thomas’s day a couple of weeks ago. During the year, it means observing and contemplating the meaning of the season… even when there isn’t one. As I alluded to, the main liturgical seasons of the Christian calendar are Easter and Christmas. For our family, the lead up to Easter starts at Septuagesima, which is like a “pre-Lent”, and I’ve posted in the past about ways to mark the 50-day Easter season. The lead up to Christmastide is Advent, which starts on the Sunday closest to St Andrew’s Day. Our family also marks a “pre-Advent” starting at Michaelmas (29 Sep). All of these periods add an element of ritual and tradition to our home life, and help us to continually turn towards God.

But the periods between the Lent/Easter and Advent/Christmas seasons don’t have their own seasons, and are called “Ordinary Time” since they’re marked simply by the “Ordinal number” of Sundays after Epiphany or Trinity. So how do we sanctify the season with no liturgical season? Well, it’s summer so here are a few ideas:

Every Sabbath is a barbeque feast. Practically it makes sense: No one wants the oven on when it’s stinkin’ hot outside. So throughout the summer Ordinary season, we try to grill but Sundays are reserved for family barbeque extravaganzas: Smoked beef ribs, grilled prime rib cap, smoked pulled-pork, and grilled piri-piri chicken. In short, I try to make the entire meal using the smoker and grill, with some memorable meals as a result.
Make Feasts and Festivals special. The Anglo-Catholic church calls the “big” feasts “Principal Feasts” and the not-so-big ones “festivals”. Our family has some feasts and festivals we’ve begun to celebrate with their own traditions each summer, such as having Spanish Paella in honour of St James, the Patron Saint of Spain, on his feast day of 25 July, or eating Indian Food in honour of St Thomas, whose apostolic see is in Kerala, India according to local tradition.
Getting outside. This one is a little harder right now with two small children in the city of Toronto still in pandemic mode, but there is a lot of Christian theology, literature, and art that contemplates nature as an expression of God. Just read St Francis of Assisi to get the idea. Church is a little slower during the summer too, so why not go somewhere really remote for the weekend, disconnect from your devices and reconnect to the sound of a loon laughing through an early-morning mist across the lake.