Detail of a brass in St Mary, Cadogan Street, London
This homily was given at Saint Mary, Mother of God, Washington, D.C.
Between the feast of Our Lady’s purification and the start of the pre-Lenten season, with Septuagesima next Sunday, the Church today keeps this fifth Sunday after the Epiphany of the Lord. In the ordinary form of the Roman rite, these ‘green Sundays’ are known as Sundays per annum or Sundays of ‘ordinary time’. They are marked by a return to normality after the festal celebrations of Christmas or of Easter, and they seek to return the faithful to the normal course of events in the liturgical year. In the extraordinary form (and in the ordinariates), the kalendar orientates these Sundays by two significant feasts – the Epiphany of the Lord and Pentecost (or Trinity) – giving a specific point of reference for these otherwise wayward days.
