The last normal Palm Sunday was in 2019, when the congregation marched around the block in symbolic remembrance of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem astride an ass (yes, dear reader, the grade school boomer snickered when he first heard the passage from the King James Bible; "ass" became "donkey" in later versions).
On Palm Sunday 2019 Tiger Woods won the Masters, his first major-tournament win after 11 years. His world was bright, and ours was too, with plentiful jobs and a soaring stock market. Now Tiger is recovering from a horrific car crash, and he is struggling to learn to walk again, much less play professional golf. Most of us, and very likely including Tiger Woods, want to go back to the way things were.
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| (From Catholic Americans in Korea) |
Chronos is the dominant mode of modern thinking--the past, present, and future are distinctly different, i.e., "chronological".
Kairos, another Greek word, is about propitious moments, e.g., saying the right words and saying them eloquently are important, but saying them at the right time maximizes their impact. Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem at Passover is an example of Kairos.
Transhistoricity is above history, that is, a thing or concept "that has always existed and is not merely confined to one particular stage of human history." Christians and followers of other religions believe that God and universal truths exist independently of human-defined periods of history.
The priest further explained: events and people are unified across time. We are limited in our understanding if we think that Palm Sunday, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection happened in the past. We are there now, cheering for Jesus, shouting for Barabbas to be freed, and witnessing His death at the Cross.
In science fiction movies, chaos results when past, present, and future converge. Fear not, said Jesus, whom we proclaim will come again but according to transhistoricity may be already here. Uh-oh, I'm not ready, but few of us are.
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