In today’s readings we can see that what is most exceptional about these holy days is how they are so ordinary: a meal like so many thousands of other meals, a trial like the millions of people on trial and in jails today, an execution so commonplace it was grouped in with two other state criminals.
Yet, we want this Lent to be exceptional, the one where we finally figure it out, where we actually get it right. We long for this Holy Week to be the one where it clicks and we are changed forever.
In the midst of all his ordinariness and ours, Christ explains that is precisely in the ordinary where glory comes. What makes his ordinary days so extra-ordinary is that Christ’s will and the Father’s will are one. So too, for us, glory comes breaking in and charges our ordinary world when God’s will and our will are one.
Who does God long for me to become in my own ordinary days? How does God long to fill my ordinary world with his glory?
—Cyril Pinchak, S.J. is a first year theology student at Regis College in Toronto. He taught previously at University of Detroit High School & Academy in Detroit, MI.