Our whole lives are divided into time periods: minutes, hours, years, etc. We anticipate the moments we accomplish certain milestones, such as our graduation, marriage, promotion, and retirement from work. Few of us anticipate with the same eagerness the moment we will die.

St. John references Jesus’ hour seven times throughout his gospel.  Jesus’ finest hour was not the time he healed the blind man or turned water into wine. It’s not the casting out of demons or the raising of Lazarus from the dead. He came into this world for one purpose, and although he did many miraculous things, his greatest accomplishment came at the end of his earthly life.

One of my favorite authors, Fr. Leiva-Merikakis, wrote that, “God came to us in human flesh to make his self-surrender possible and literal. This self-bestowal occurred at a given moment of historical time. To be Christians is to imitate in our own present time an act of self-surrender that God accomplished through Christ…That is how far love makes God go.” Jesus became one of us so that we could become one with God.

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. —John 13:1

This week, we celebrate the holiest week of the liturgical season; the hour Jesus passes from the world he created, bearing the transgressions of the people created through him, into the arms of God his father.

Let us remember, the Lord suffered crucifixion and death to go and prepare a place for us. He will come back and take us with him so that where he is, we may also be.

Yours in the Heart of Jesus,

Donna