Does ordinary time, the days after Pentecost, mean that every day is the same? They’re not. Graces, challenges,  joys and sorrows,  hints of things, “our daily bread” are all there. We have to notice them. The Carmelite nun, Jessica Powers, ends a poem calling the day  “my beautiful unknown.” We just need eyes to see and ears to hear

SONG AT DAYBREAK

This morning on the way

that yawns with light across the eastern sky

and lifts its bright arms high –

It may bring hours disconsolate or gay,

I do not know, but this much I can say:

It will be unlike any other day.

 

God lives in his surprise and variation.

No leaf is matched, no star is shaped to star.

No soul is like my soul in all creation

though I may search afar.

There is something -anquish or elation-

that is peculiar to this day alone.

I rise from sleep and say: Hail to the morning!

Come down to me, my beautiful unknown.

 

Jessica Powers