Consecrating the Ordinary

Feb. 2, 2026

The feast of the Presentation shows that all Christians are called to offer their lives to God

By Dominican Sister Maria Rose of the Crown of Thorns

Feb. 2, 2026

“The Presentation in the Temple” by Alvaro Pirez, ca. 1405-15 (Metropolitan Museum of Art / Public Domain)

It’s fitting that the feast of the Presentation of the Lord (Feb. 2) is also the day the Church celebrates consecrated life.

The feast recalls both the purification of Mary and the consecration of Jesus to God in the Temple at Jerusalem as required by Mosaic law (cf. Lk 2:22-23). The formal dedication of the Christ Child to his Father is a beautiful symbol of the “yes” of consecrated religious — of the vowing of our lives to God publicly in the Church. Like Jesus, we are dedicated, set apart for the Lord, and, through grace, will spend our lives in his service.

However, it is easy to allow this beautiful symbol to lead into a familiar trap. Seeing us religious consecrated so officially, it can be tempting to think that we differ from the rest of the Church fundamentally — that we are called to a holiness different from that of the laity, and that the laity, by extension, are called to something a little more “ordinary.”

While it is true that it would be impossible to be “set apart” and not be somehow different, there is a tendency to falsely distinguish consecrated religious from the rest of the baptized in ways that the Church never intended, leading to confusion about the role of the laity.

All the baptized are called to holiness, often in the context of ordinary lives. Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, teaches, “It is evident to everyone that all the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity” (40).

Moreover, the constitution continues, “Let no one think that religious have become strangers to their fellowmen or useless citizens of this earthly city by their consecration. For even though it sometimes happens that religious do not directly mingle with their contemporaries, yet in a more profound sense these same religious are united with them in the heart of Christ and spiritually cooperate with them” (46).

It is clear, then, how important it is to understand our role in the Church and to take hold of our personal vocation with zeal.

The Presentation is just the feast to help us do this

Cloistered Dominican nuns and postulants venerate the incorrupt heart relic of St. Jean Vianney — Cloistered Dominican nuns and postulants of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary in Summit, N.J., venerate the incorrupt heart relic of St. Jean Vianney June 8, 2019. The relic crisscrossed the United States in the care of the Knights of Columbus from Nov. 10 to June 13 that year. (Photo by Jeffrey Bruno)

A RADICAL GIFT

To understand the implications of the Mosaic law that Joseph and Mary fulfilled in bringing Jesus to the Temple, it is helpful to look at the Old Testament practice of tithing. For the ancient Israelites, strict laws called for the offering of certain persons and material goods to the Lord. We see this practice in the offering of first fruits (Ex 23:19; Dt 26:1-11) and in the dedication of the firstborn son (Ex 13:1-2), of which the Presentation of the Lord is both an example and a fulfillment. These laws asked every Jewish family to apportion part of their wealth to the Lord as a symbol of their belonging to him as a nation.

But what does this mean for us as Christians? First off, Jesus’ own consecration was marked by the extraordinary prophecy of Simeon, who identified the infant as the Messiah: “My own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people: a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.” (Lk 2:30-32).

Jesus calls us, too, to go deeper into the mystery. The material goods dedicated in this practice were always a sign, in Jewish culture, of the spiritual giving of the whole community over to God. But in the New Testament, Jesus asks for the offering — not of material goods, nor of the service of our family line — but of our very selves.

For this reason, while Christians are called to give over parts of our lives — such as time, resources and governance of certain decisions — we are also called to a fundamental gift to God in charity: total love for him that spills over into love for our neighbor. This complete gift of self we call a holocaust — after the Old Testament sacrifices in which the entire offering was consumed by the fire of the Lord — and it occurs at our baptism. By it, we are offered to the Lord, and every other act of giving flows from that reality.

The lay Christian, then, is also called to a radical gift! This gift is highlighted as pertaining to all the faithful — a universal call to holiness.

This is the relevance of the feast of the Presentation to all the lay faithful as baptized Christians. St. Thomas Aquinas makes it clear that, though under formal vow, religious are really making a commitment to live out their baptismal vows more deeply. In his 1984 apostolic exhortation Redemptionis Donum, St. John Paul II put it this way: “In Christ Crucified is to be found the ultimate foundation both of baptismal consecration and of the profession of the evangelical counsels” (7). For this reason, the fundamental reality of our Christian life as vowed religious is indistinct from that of the laity.

The opening session of the Second Vatican Council convenes in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, Oct. 11, 1962. (CNS photo/Giancarlo Giuliani, Catholic Press Photo)

LIVING THE GIFT

We are all here to be given to Christ — to live for him in this life and be happy with him in the next. We are all to be consecrated in the most foundational sense. The formal commitment of religious life is meant as a sign of this universal call to all baptized Christians — a beacon to remind us what it is we are meant to be. As in the season of Ordinary Time, in which this feast falls, there is nothing mundane about the ordinary. Rather, the ordinary is one more facet of creation that belongs to the Creator, and we are called to render it back to him.

How, then, do we work out this consecration in our daily lives?

We must go back to the roots of our baptism and, like the Lord at his presentation, begin from the total gift of ourselves and work outward. It is through the theological virtue of charity — the total union with God — that all our good works are rendered holy. Everything in our lives — from loving our spouses, to providing for the poor and vulnerable, to serving our country — can help us grow in that holiness. Without charity, none of these things can bring us to heaven.

Practically, this means a change of mindset that can only come through a life of prayer and frequent participation in the sacraments — in which we stop seeking what we can do for God and start seeking ways we can be completely his. Having righted our relationship to the Lord in our own souls, we can then proceed, according to his will, to the works he has ordained for us to do. While we are not of this world, we are in it — and we are called to pour out the gift of God’s grace to others through it, consecrating every ordinary action to the glory of his name.

*****

Sister Maria Rose Potter, O.P., is a cloistered Dominican nun of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary, Summit, N.J. She is editor-in-chief of their independent publishing house, DNS Publications, and author of the upcoming Wed to a Crucified Lord: The Writings & Spirituality of Saint Rose of Lima (August 2026, DNS Publications).

Supreme Chaplain Archbishop William Lori, joined by other Supreme Officers and K of C leaders, celebrates Mass in the Sacred Heart Chapel of the Church of the Gesù in Rome.

Consecrating the Ordinary

A RADICAL GIFT

LIVING THE GIFT

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