10th Monday of Ordinary Time
8 June 2026
Why Ordinary Time Is Anything But Ordinary
The Church calendar changed to Ordinary Time the Monday after Pentecost, which means we return to green.
One of the dangers in the spiritual life is that we can begin to think of Ordinary Time as unimportant time. The great seasons have passed. Advent prepared us. Christmas celebrated the Incarnation. Lent called us to repentance. Easter overwhelmed us with the victory of Christ and the promise of new life. Pentecost gave us the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as God made His home in us. And now the Church returns to green vestments, ordinary readings, and the long stretch of Ordinary Time.
But the Church does not call this “empty time.” She calls it Ordinary Time because it is the ordered life of discipleship. This is where the Christian life is meant to mature and grow.
The color green is important. Green is the color of living things. Growth. Stability. Fruitfulness. Not dramatic flashes of color like Christmas or Easter gold and white or Pentecost red, but the steady life of a tree that is rooted deeply enough to endure every season. That is exactly what the Church wants for us spiritually.
The great liturgical seasons are not isolated emotional experiences. They are meant to change us. Advent teaches us longing. Christmas teaches us wonder. Lent teaches us repentance. Easter teaches us hope. Pentecost teaches us mission and dependence upon the Holy Spirit. Ordinary Time asks: What are you going to do with all of that now?
In many ways, the major seasons of the Church year are like spring training. There is formation, preparation, discipline, instruction, and renewal. But eventually the season begins. Eventually what has been practiced must become lived reality. A baseball team cannot stay in spring training forever. At some point the games begin. Likewise, the Christian cannot remain forever in moments of extraordinary inspiration without entering into the ordinary daily work of holiness.
And honestly, this is where most sanctity is formed. Not in dramatic moments, but in consistency. Daily prayer. Reading Scripture. Patience. Confession. Forgiveness. Faithfulness in marriage. Raising children. Caring for aging parents. Doing honest work. Returning to Mass week after week. Learning to love God and neighbor in ordinary circumstances.
The saints were not built only in extraordinary moments of spiritual intensity. They were built in perseverance. This is also why the Church returns us to the long green season after Pentecost. The Holy Spirit was not poured out merely to create one emotional experience in the Upper Room. The Spirit was given to sustain the life of the Church over time through suffering, routine, mission, temptation, and growth.
Real growth takes time. We learn that most from the plant and the greenery around us. We often want immediate transformation. We want holiness quickly. But God tends to work more like a gardener than a mechanic. A mechanic can replace a broken part instantly. A gardener cultivates patiently. Roots deepen slowly. Fruit develops over seasons.
And if we are not careful, we can miss the importance of this time because it lacks the emotional intensity and the “specialness” of the bigger seasons. But Ordinary Time is where the lessons of the great seasons sink into the bones. The Christian life is not lived only at Christmas Mass or during Holy Week. It is lived on ordinary Mondays and Tuesdays. In hidden acts of faithfulness. In continuing to pray when prayer feels dry. In continuing to believe when life becomes difficult.
Green vestments quietly remind us that God intends us to keep growing. Not merely collecting spiritual experiences, but slowly becoming saints.