When God Enters The Ordinary

The Liturgical calendar resumes Ordinary Time. In reflecting on this, I began to reflect how down through the centuries, God has entered the ordinary.
Sacred Scripture contains one example after another of what happens when God enters the ordinary. The most profound, of course, is that of He Himself entering the human race in the person of Jesus Christ. However, if we go back to the very beginning of the Bible in Genesis and read the chapters on creation, we can see God entering the ordinary.  He made man from dust; it doesn’t get more ordinary than dust! We see God’s transforming powers in the lives of ordinary people like Abraham and Sarah, Zechariah and Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna. He enters the lives of 12 ordinary men, some fishermen, others tax collectors. All of these people were leading simple ordinary lives. Then God stepped in and nothing in their lives was ever ordinary again.

The lives of the saints attest to this as well. St Ignatius of Loyola’s own conversion came about in some difficult, but ordinary circumstances. He was a soldier who had great plans for his own glory in fighting great military battles ~ that is, until he was injured one day on the battlefield. During his recovery, his sister had brought him some books on the life of Christ and on the lives of the saints.  Ignatius wasn’t much interested in these, but began to read them anyway. What he read in these books became the catalyst for his conversion. His plans became less about his glory and all about God’s. 

All of this got me thinking about my own life. I sometimes like to imagine my own conception.  As God breathed my soul into the cells of my humble beginnings, what was He thinking? What did He see?  I can almost hear Him say, “I know the plans I have for you…”  (see Jeremiah 29:11) I know that for most of my life I did not allow God to carry out the plans He had for me, but once I got out of the way and began to see that my life is not about me, but about God, extraordinary things began to happen.  I know there are still times I tend to get in His way, but that is no longer my intention. I slowly have begun to recognize those times I make my life to be more about me, and I don’t like the results of those times.

God is always striving to enter our lives at each and every ordinary moment. He won’t come into them uninvited though. Our goal in this life is to live our lives, ordinary as they may be, in such a way that will get us home to God for eternity. In order for that to happen, we have to let Him in and transform our ordinariness into His extraordinariness, for heaven is no ordinary place!