Written by Barb Spies, OFS, Director of Mission Services and Pastoral Care

I remember a ketchup commercial from my childhood where Carly Simon’s song, “Anticipation,” played as the ketchup poured from the bottle. This feeling of excitement about something that is going to happen soon is one way to look at this term. It can also just mean preparation for something to happen, and even an apprehensive expectation. This week is filled with anticipation of all kinds.

Jesus kept letting the disciples know what was coming in his future. Peter responded with foreboding and denial. The apostles didn’t quite understand the meaning of Messiah. They were filled with apprehension. They had anticipatory grief. And after Good Friday, they were in a space of sadness. They were anxious about their own futures as well. Many of us experience a similar form of anticipatory grief. Maybe we look to significant changes coming in our lives: leaving our current home, a change in employment, the dissolution of a relationship, the death of a loved one. There is so much emotion in these expected futures. Yet, we know that Jesus is with us in that grief.

This week is different for us than it was for the disciples. We know the rest of the story. We have the predictions of the future in this Lenten timeline from Jesus in Scripture. We can skip ahead and read what happens next. We understand with our own hindsight that he offered a foretaste of the feast to come. Our anticipation is a more positive visualization.

Rather than living in a state of anticipatory grief, we have more pleasurable expectations. We have knowledge of the promise of the Resurrection. But we are in a time of waiting this week. We hear the Passion story on Palm Sunday and Good Friday. While we would love to go from Hosanna to the celebration of Easter, we spend this week in anticipation. We need the whole story to fully comprehend the beauty of what is to come. Our prospects for this coming Sunday are filled with anticipation of excitement.

And so we wait together. We hear the story in its entirety. We sing the songs of lamentation. We walk the painful road with Jesus. We sit with Mary Magdalene in tears outside the tomb. But, thankfully, we know what will come on Easter Sunday. We live in the hope of what is to come.  

Blessed Angela: “May Jesus support you with His grace so that you may persevere in that attitude, and that you may remain faithful to Him always.”