The passage from the Second Letter to the Corinthians should be familiar to most of us, at least to those who regularly attend church services on Ash Wednesday. Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. (2 Corinthians 6:2c) The "acceptable time" notion is very apt for Lent and for urging people to repentance NOW. However, we find ourselves in the middle of the summer months; why consider penance and sacrifice now.
A few days ago, my brother and sister-in-law were considering the amount of time they had been spending with her father. He had just come through a very difficult surgery for cancer. His struggle after the surgery continues on. Minutes had turned into hours, hours into days, days into weeks. Soon it will be a month. Time has a way of creeping up on us as the hours of concern accumulate.
Is anything as difficult to endure as waiting for a bus?
Why does Christmas take so long in coming and pass so quickly?
"How long, O Lord," the prophet cries. Even our ancestors had trouble waiting.
Remember the line from Fiddler on the Roof in which a man asks if it would be a good time for the Messiah to come now?
The fact of the matter is that time is a creation of human beings for measuring. Time is as arbitrary as the notion that 5,280 feet equal a mile. Who says?
God exists only in the now. God has no past. God has no future. God is only now – our present. St. Paul realized this and wanted his readers to come to that realization. We cannot procrastinate when it comes to God for tomorrow is something God does not understand. There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. (Ecclesiastes 3:1) The time is now.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator