One Ordinary Sunday

Winner of the 2017 Association of Catholic Publishers Excellence in Publishing Award: General Interest Books (First Place) and the Catholic Press Association Book Award: Popular Presentation of the Catholic Faith (First Place). In One Ordinary Sunday the popular, award-winning writer Paula Huston draws on her spiritual wisdom and her talent as a novelist to provide both a moment-by-moment record of her experience of one particular Mass on one particular Sunday in her home parish in California and a theologically and historically rich exploration of the origin and meaning of the liturgy. For Catholics, the Mass is the “source and summit of the Christian life,” as the documents of the Church put it. Yet many Catholics might confess to not understanding in any depth what goes on in an “ordinary” celebration of the Eucharist. In perhaps her most compelling and original book to date, novelist and spiritual writer Paula Huston guides us through a Mass on the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time at her home parish in Arroyo Grande, California. Huston’s personal and spiritual reflections offer fresh and often unexpected insights into the profound mystery at the heart of the Catholic faith. A natural storyteller, Huston deftly illuminates what might seem either mysterious to those unfamiliar with the Mass or overly familiar to those who have lost an appreciation of its mystery. In the Mass “we are healed and restored and spiritually fed,” she writes. “We are handed strong armor against evil. We are unified and made whole as a people and as a Church. We get a little taste of heaven.” Readers of this book will learn how our confession of sins at the beginning of the Mass differs from the sacrament of Penance; what it means to say that the Mass is a sacrifice; why the prayers of the Mass, especially the Gloria, are full of scriptural allusions; what the purpose of the Eucharistic Prayer is; and what happens at the consecration of bread and wine and how it is the most profound mystery and miracle of the Mass. One Ordinary Sunday is for all Catholics, especially those who have questions about the basic practices of their faith, who are new to the Church and still somewhat baffled about its rituals of worship, or who have left the Church behind but still feel like part of the family.

Award-winning writer Paula Huston offers a rich spiritual reflection on the origin and meaning of the Catholic Mass. For Catholics, the Mass is the "source and summit of the Christian life," as the documents of the Church put it. Yet many Catholics might confess to not understand in any depth what goes on in a typical celebration of the Eucharist. In One Ordinary Sunday Paula Huston guides us through a Mass at her home parish in a rural California town. Huston's personal and spiritual reflections offer fresh and often unexpected insights into the profound mystery at the heart of the Catholic faith. A natural storyteller, Huston deftly illuminates what might seem either mysterious to those unfamiliar with the Mass or overly familiar to those who have lost an appreciation of its mystery. In the Mass "we are healed and restored and spiritually fed," she writes. "We are unified and made whole as a people and as a Church. We get a little taste of heaven."

In these essays on the Gospel readings of the Ordinary Sundays, Fr. Raymond E. Brown seeks to fit the Sunday readings into an overall picture of each Gospel, showing how the Gospel shapes the narrative and its theological emphases.0

“One of the 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Last 25 Years”—Slate On New Year’s Day 2013, two-time Pulitzer Prize–winner Gene Weingarten asked three strangers to, literally, pluck a day, month, and year from a hat. That day—chosen completely at random—turned out to be Sunday, December 28, 1986, by any conventional measure a most ordinary day. Weingarten spent the next six years proving that there is no such thing. That Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s turned out to be filled with comedy, tragedy, implausible irony, cosmic comeuppances, kindness, cruelty, heroism, cowardice, genius, idiocy, prejudice, selflessness, coincidence, and startling moments of human connection, along with evocative foreshadowing of momentous events yet to come. Lives were lost. Lives were saved. Lives were altered in overwhelming ways. Many of these events never made it into the news; they were private dramas in the lives of private people. They were utterly compelling. One Day asks and answers the question of whether there is even such a thing as “ordinary” when we are talking about how we all lurch and stumble our way through the daily, daunting challenge of being human.

Imagine sitting in the cockpit of a jet fighter descending to the rolling, moving flight deck of a super carrier at sea. You have 600 feet of flight deck to thread the eye of the needle and land safely. Ten thousand times ten thousand this dangerous drama has been repeated in the history of American carrier aviation. It is simply extraordinary. This drama at sea if viewed through the proper lens can have great spiritual significance for your life. Imagine that the flight deck represents your safe haven in life, the place you return to again and again for meaning and stability. The flight deck is also the catapult for every new mission in life but here's the hook; God script for your life written by His own hand is better than any script you could write for yourself. Without God's script engaging your life, the bolters and wave-offs in your life's vocation will be frequent and the safe traps upon His flight deck few. For me to say to you, "Choose God's script," is far too simple and simplistic. Discovering God's script for your life is much more complex and often counterintuitive against the powers of human reasoning. Nevertheless, it is only His script for your life that will lead you through the eye of the needle to reach the blessed end of God's script for your dreams. Life, your life, is a great drama. Take the chance and live without God's script and you will bolter again and again with the imminent danger of ditching your plane into the angry sea. God alone threads the needle reframing your life until He brings you safely aboard His celestial flight deck turning every ordinary life into something truly extraordinary. I have written this little book from my heart to yours via real life vignettes spread across the spectrum of my own ordinary life demonstrating that the grace of God is alive, active and at work. If God above can touch my ordinary life with His extraordinary grace as I wander about in the midst of eight billion souls strolling across planet earth and keep me on the narrow path of His vocation chosen for me, will He not do the same for you? Most certainly true. You're approaching the flight deck. Flaps down. Tailhook down. Call the Ball! Trapped! You have safely landed on the celestial flight deck of God's grace ready for a new extraordinary mission in your ordinary life. Discover God's script for you. To God be all the glory.

This book considers the deacon’s relationship to Baptism, his relationship to the ritual, and his relationship to the families of the children whom he baptizes. The resource will help the deacon better understand how Baptism calls its recipients to discipleship, the symbols and the gestures of the ritual, and ways to stimulate faith among families who bring their children to be baptized. This resource also will address practical issues, such as suggestions for the homily, a checklist to prepare for Baptisms, when a deacon may baptize, and how to navigate through the ritual when many children are being baptized.