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A Thought on Sunday
 Will I Ever Have the Time?
From the desk of Fr Ignatius Waters CP
Sunday December 4, 2011
I said last week that I was only getting used to 2011 when suddenly it was almost over. Just like a few fast months! Well, that’s nothing! Today St. Peter says that to God, a thousand years is like a day! I haven’t got that far yet! But I’m getting there! Of course, Peter was quoting a Psalm:
“To your eyes a thousand years
Are like yesterday, come and gone,
No more than a watch in the night.” (Ps. 89/90)
The same psalm says it’s a good thing to know how short our time is:
“Make us know the shortness of our life
That we may gain wisdom of heart.”
In school we had a poem by Shakespeare:
“Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end.”
That didn’t worry us then! Hasten away!
Someone asked John O’Donohue, “What is it that haunts you?” And he replied, “I can tell you exactly; it is the sense of time slipping through my fingers like fine sand. And there is nothing I can do to slow it.” He wrote that in a book called ‘Benedictus’ published before Christmas, 2007. He died suddenly in his sleep on January 4th 2008, a few days after his fifty - third birthday.
Recently there was a report about a second tablet found in a Mayan temple predicting the end of the world in 2012 - in December 2012 to be precise! There are people who delight in predictions of doom like this but never allow themselves to think, “My time could be up today!” It could be! But being aware of it needn’t mean feelings of doom and depression. It can mean the opposite - wisdom of heart and quiet wonder at the mystery of being alive! Some saints said that if they knew they were soon to die, they would just continue doing what they normally do. They would change nothing! Would you? Would I?
The same John O’Donahue describes this kind of spirituality when he says: “I have always loved the shy beauty of country people who have quietly made their lives sacred. (Of course, it’s not confined to country people!) Their presence has the feel of unaffected authenticity. Theirs is a spirituality that draws no attention to itself; it is more beautiful than most studied spirituality. These people have often lived through great difficulty, but their quiet and subtle lives never saw any need for brash declarations of spirit; rather they exhibited the shyness that is natural to the soul itself.”
In a lovely song Liam Lawton wonders will he ‘ever have the time’ to do all the good things he longs to do.
Advent encourages us to wake up and get started!
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