Sunday, December 30, 2007


Time versus Eternity...


I recently attended a wonderful day retreat where we heard a talk about time versus eternity. When was the last time you thought about this? When was the last time you actually took a second to realize that we are going to live forEVER somewhere (Heaven or Hell), and that our time now is nothing more than a speck in the face of eternity. In the Bible it says: "What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." (James 4:14b)

How true that is! None of us knows if Jesus will return in our lifetime, or if our lives will end very soon. Although we don't know when our lives will end, we do know that they will end.

It is interesting when people find out that they have a terminal sickness and that they will die soon. The doctor tells them "Get your house in order!". Shouldn't we always have our 'house in order'? Thank God for the sacrament of confession where we have the opportunity to clean our souls of that sin and have the chance to try again (and again)! We must be careful though to not grow slack and think we have time. Our time is very short. I don't know how much time anyone has, but in the face of eternity, all the time in the world is short.

Then also, we shouldn't simply think that if I go to confession and stay out of mortal sin then I am okay. No! God has given us our lives and the little time we have for a reason! It is our duty to help our own soul first, yes, but then we must fight very hard to help bring all souls to Christ. Evangelization!!! We are the Church militant! It is our duty to work for Christ in the vocation and mission we are called to serve right now!

Remember the story Jesus told where the servants all got some talents and they were supposed to multiply those talents before the king returned? (Matthew 25:14-30) Remember how one servant who received one talent, buried his talent to keep it safe, and upon the king's return the servant gave the one talent back. The king was furious that the servant had not even put the talent in the bank to get interest---he had done absolutely nothing beneficial with his money.

Just so, we should think of those talents as our time, our vocation, and our mission. We cannot simply stay in our little shells and keep our souls "safe". We are called to go out and bring more back for Christ! We are called to use every second the way God intends for us to use it. Personally, not wasting time is an everyday challenge. However, we really should examine our conscience to see if we have done this sin and repent of it if we are guilty. Like Benjamin Franklin once said, "Lost time is never found again.".

2 comments:

Soutenus said...

Great post and very "timely" as we are approaching the new year and thinking so much in terms of our human counting of time!

Sister Mary Martha said...

I just dropped by to wish you a Happy New Year!