Want to decrease anxiety, grow in peace, and become more connected to God and others this year? The Church has an important opportunity for you. It’s called Ordinary Time.
This precious space between Christmas and Lent, is the space given to remind us to give space for God. In this day and age, quiet, stillness, non-scheduled time, feels like a luxury, but it Is a needed reality, like sleep, like recreation, like Sundays. It is part of allowing our souls to rest in God’s love.
Recent studies have indicated time away from screens, from phones, from distraction, facilitates concentration, creativity and memory. It makes sense, since God is all present (concentration), all creative, and knows and forgets nothing about any of us, that we would be hardwired to need that breathing stillness to hear His still small voice in our souls. It makes sense that seeking that stillness, would foster the essence of His presence in our lives even if we did not know it was Him whispering.
Ordinary time matters because it doesn’t require you have one thousand traditions to fit the season, it’s just time when you can just sit and steep in God’s grace as you go about the business of the pots and pans, errands and bills. We’re made for this.
What’s more, the Church is providing you with a special means this year, (2026) to hear God better.
This is the Jubilee Year of Saint Francis. Saint Francis of Assisi spent his life cultivating a quiet soul. It began in captivity, while suffering from an illness in addition to being a prisoner. We are prisoners in our own lives, when we make a cage for ourselves that keeps us from loving God and our neighbors. It can be work, a hobby, even a devotion, but if it keeps us from seeing others as Christ in his distressing disguise as the other person we encounter, we are loving an idol, rather than the Creator of all things. If we would imitate this beloved saint, we should imitate who he loved. Go out and praise God for the gifts of Brother Sun and Sister Moon, and all of creation. Be a person who serves the poor, by word, deed, with time and treasure. Offer to God all, and all will be multiplied beyond measure.
To celebrate this Jubilee year, make a pilgrimage to a designated shrine and offer alms, receive communion and confession and pray for the intentions of our pope for the month. You have three hundred and fifty-five days to both honor this saint, grow in holiness, serve the poor and grow deeper in love with the source of all joy. The time of this year may be limited, but the graces aren’t. This Ordinary Time, coupled with the Jubilee Year, is nothing short of wonderous, so act now.
Sherry Antonetti is an author, freelance writer and Catholic blogger.
