393. Twenty-fifth Saturday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 353 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Life is short to grow in holiness and deeds of love.

The time God gives us for growing in holiness is limited. Only he knows the measure allotted to each person, and therefore we need to make good use of our time on earth. We find this lesson in the book of Ecclesiastes: Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth; walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgement. Remove vexation from your mind, and put away pain from your body; for youth and the dawn of life are vanity. Remember, also, your creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, the time for us to render an account to God for our whole life.

God has the right, our Founder wrote, and we have a duty, to glorify him “at every moment”. So if we waste time we are robbing God of his glory. And he spurred us on many times to make good use of the time which God gives us: You know that the task is urgent, and that one minute given to comfort is time taken from the glory of God. Why, then, do you hesitate to make conscientious use of every moment?

Moreover, I ask you to think whether the minutes you have to spare throughout the day, which taken together come to hours, might not be prompted by your disorder and laziness.

We have received so much from God, and he expects a lot from us. Millions of people, entire nations, do not yet know our Lord. So many Christians seem to have forgotten Christ. To reach everyone, our Father wrote, we need to do the impossible, because anybody can do what is possible. We should always keep in view what still remains to be done. We can’t waste time, for it is short. We need to be determined in our struggle for sanctity and in the apostolate God has entrusted to us. We must “spend” the time we’re given faithfully, loyally, and administer the talents we’ve received responsibly, in order to take the Work of God forwards.

We need to use every moment to serve God.

St Paul urges us to redeem time, to make good use of it, since the redemption is being carried out now. Now is the time for purification, the time to win souls.

I’d like to remind you once more that we don’t have much time left, tempus breve est, because life on earth is short, and also that, since we have the means, all that’s needed is our goodwill to make use of the opportunities that God grants us. From the moment that our Lord came into this world, the acceptable time, the day of salvation, commenced for us and for all men. May our Father God never have to cast upon us the reproach he spoke through the prophet Jeremiah: the kite, circling in the air, knows its time; turtledove can guess, and swallow, and stork, when they should return; only for my people the divine appointment passes unobserved.

Time once past never returns; it is unrepeatable. Each day of our life, each minute is part of the divine plan of redemption. Time is not ours, but God’s, and he asks that every moment of our life bear fruit, by his grace.

It availed the fig tree little, relates the Evangelist, that it was not the season for figs when our Lord came to it to look for them.

-And barren it remained for ever. We are asked to fulfil the duty of each moment. There are no bad or inopportune days, our Father said.

All days are good, for serving God. Days become bad only when men spoil them with their lack of faith, their laziness and their indolence, which turns them away from working with and for God. At all times I will bless the Lord. Time is a treasure that melts away. It escapes from us, slipping through our fingers like water through the mountain rocks. Tomorrow will soon be another yesterday. Our lives are so very short. Yesterday has gone and today is passing by. But what a great deal can be done for the love of God in this short space of time!

No excuses will do us any good. Our Lord has been very generous with us. He has instructed us patiently. He has explained his precepts to us through parables. He has insisted tirelessly. As with Philip, he could ask us: here am I, who have been all this while in your company; have you not learned to recognize me yet? The time has now come for us to get down to hard work, filling each moment of the day and bearing, willingly and joyfully, the day’s burden and the heat.

God awaits us at every moment of the day; and he asks us to bear fruit. Let us never grow weary of loving our God. We need to use every second of our poor life to serve all souls, for love of our Lord.

Living the hodie, nunc.

He who observes the wind will not sow; and he who regards the clouds will not reap, says Sacred Scripture. It is an invitation to fulfil the duty of each moment, not being put off by plans and hopes for the future. It is easy to fool ourselves into waiting for more favourable circumstances. Our Father wrote: Tomorrow!: sometimes it may be prudence; very often it is the adverb of the defeated. What would have become of the work of the twelve Apostles, if they had waited for favourable circumstances to begin preaching? Death would have found them still waiting and empty-handed.

For us Christians, our Founder wrote, the fleetingness of our journey through life should instead be a spur to help us make better use of our time. The brief span of our time on earth should focus our attention on the task in hand. Thus we will live with our feet squarely on the ground, while never forgetting that our goal transcends our earthly life.

Ministerium tuum imple, fulfil the duties of your ministry, St Paul said to Timothy … Be punctual; be patient. Don’t let yourself be fooled by the thousand and one rationalizations for letting up in the apostolate entrusted to you.

Be convinced, and convince young people, that in our dictionary there are two superfluous words: “tomorrow” and “later”. Today and now! Don’t leave the apostolic work for later, and help others not to do so. You will soon come to understand how, given equal conditions, or even with worse conditions regarding talent, culture and so on, the person who habitually conquers laziness - today, now - always ends up the winner. Delaying things - tomorrow, later - ruins all apostolate.

Our Father was so fond of the punctual fulfilment of duty that he had a tapestry made to remind the St Raphael fellows of their obligation to make good use of their time. On it were the two words, Hodie, nunc, which some translated loosely but with a sound dose of philosophy: “Now or never.”

Our Father added: Don’t conclude, from what I’ve said, that we should rush the apostolate; that would be disorder. Rather we should do everything at its proper time. This is as far removed from delaying our duty for comfort’s sake, as it is from letting ourselves be governed by the disordered impulse of the moment.

We turn to our Lady to finish our prayer. At her side we contemplate the true value of the present moment and eternity, many times a day. Let us ask her once again: Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.