Non Vedo L’Ora

The Italian expression for “I can’t wait!” literally means “I do not see the hour!” (“Non vedo l’ora!”).  Today’s Gospel is filled with agitation mixed with competing expectations.  To those who have begun to hope in Jesus as a type of messiah, they speculate about whether He will come to the festival of Passover and work a sign to catalyze a popular throwing off of the yoke of Roman occupation.  On the other hand, those Jewish leaders who believe collusion with imperial forces furthers the interests of stability (and their own hold on power) see the capture and execution of Jesus as a possibility ripe for pursuing; in the words of the high priest Caiaphas:  “It is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.”  Neither Christ’s friends nor His enemies “saw the hour.”  In the face of all their fevered scenarios, we are simply told that “Jesus no longer walked about in public . . . but He left for the region near the desert . . . and there he remained with his disciples.” 

The day before Holy Week begins is a strange “desert day.”  On the eve of Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, the Church readies herself to re-present liturgically our renewed entrance into the culminating moment of our salvation in the Paschal Mystery.  We do have the privilege of “seeing the hour”---the “Hour” our Savior foresaw as God from all eternity and toward which His earthly ministry as man was oriented from the beginning.  But as we approach the reading and hearing of the Gospel of Christ’s Passion, we must avoid all temptations to see it as “scripted”---that is to say predictable and hence dismissible. 

Preparing for great events requires contemplation and a necessary retreat from public view and its attending expectations.  So does convalescing from surgery.  As I have shared with you, it is during this upcoming week that I am medically approved to begin preaching.  I have waited for this hour!  My TMJ difficulties and their on-going resolution have existentially persuaded me that the Hour of Christ’s Passion possesses us infinitely more than we think we possess it.  Our long prepared entrance---ready or not!---into this sacred mystery of the Lord’s redemptive spontaneity is what we must beg of our Divine Savior the grace to see.