Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, priest

Today's Mass Readings

A couple years ago, I went to a high school reunion. I remember being amazed at what my former classmates had done or become since high school. One was a budding Hollywood producer, another a renowned local artist, another a sought-after lawyer. In an admittedly non-humble way, I wanted to say to their various admirers and employers: “Seriously? You thought they would be good? Don’t you know about the practical joke he played on his teachers in ninth grade? Haven’t you heard about the time she set fire to the entire chemistry lab?” This must be a bit like Jesus’ hometown friends and neighbors saw him (Matthew 13:54-58): “Seriously? This kid is supposed to be someone special? He’s just an ordinary guy. We know him, we grew up with him, we know his family.” But of course, I’m probably wrong in my estimation of my old high school buddies, just like they were wrong about Jesus. Familiarity doesn’t breed contempt so much as it breeds presumption that we fully know who that person is. Familiarity prevents us from seeing the other person in the way God sees him or her, as a person with amazing gifts and talents.

Maybe, too, familiarity prevents us from seeing ourselves in the way God see us – as people with gifts and talents to share with others. Maybe my own incredulity at someone else’s gifts at making movies or art reflects on my own self doubt: am I good enough to do anything at all? I’m just too ordinary and not at all special.

This is why I appreciate today’s first reading (Leviticus 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34b-37), though. This passage is all about marking time, ordinary, seemingly non-special time. Time is familiar to us, the thing we love to hate (it runs too fast or too slow), so much so that we forget how special time is. We don’t take the time to reflect on time. In today’s passage, God sets out what the special days and weeks are, and if we were to read beyond these passages we would find that God is really naming each day as special in some way. There is nothing particular about God choosing these exact days over others, except that God himself has named them as holy, and except that the people have promised to remember those days with festivals. The Sabbath, too, marks a holy day out of what otherwise would be ordinary.

This should remind us, I think, that God is present in the ordinary aspects of our lives, including in the gift of time. What seems ordinary is actually special, just as Jesus himself was the Son of God, appearing ordinary to those who grew up with him. The way in which we understand time as holy (or not) shapes our whole understanding of everything else. Is today a holy day, a day in which activities can be dedicated to God? Is today a day in which I might use my gifts? If the answer is yes, perhaps we aim to follow God more. If the answer is no – if thinking about God is only good for Sundays – then why bother doing anything in particular on this day?

Ignatius of Loyola’s feast day is today, and his life serves to remind us of how ordinary things become holy. He trained his Society of Jesus followers to go and live like the “ordinary” people, and not necessarily to draw attention to the fact that they were members of an order. They spent time intensely learning languages and foreign customs, for example. This allowed Jesuits to become skilled missionaries. He also wrote his Spiritual Exercises for all people, not just those in his order. These things attest to how much Saint Ignatius paid attention to the ordinary – for it is in ordinary things that God reveals himself.

-Jana M. Bennett