Let’s reflect more deeply on how we can give our past, present and future to Him
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Memory draws the past into the present. We know how powerful this can be on a human level. A memory — called up by a picture, story, place or whatever means — can move us to joy or bring us to tears. The past spills over into the present.
Every time the Eucharist is celebrated, the same thing happens: The past — the one sacrifice of Christ on the cross — is made present again on the altar. Here, again, there are diverse reactions: We might experience gratitude or sorrow. More deeply, our acceptance or rejection of the reality made present to us — Christ’s love — can bring eternal joy or sorrow!
Hope, by contrast, draws the future into the present. Here, too, we know this on a human level. When we think about our performance in an upcoming event — whether it’s a sporting event, a music recital, a work meeting or a relational meeting — the quality of our hope shapes our preparation for that event. If we have no hope for a good outcome, we prepare in a lackluster way. If we have hope for a good outcome, we prepare diligently. Either way, the future spills over into the present.
The same is true spiritually. Pope Benedict XVI makes the point eloquently in his encyclical on hope (“Spe Salvi”): “Faith is not merely a personal reaching out towards things to come that are still totally absent: It gives us something. It gives us even now something of the reality we are waiting for … the present is touched by the future reality, and thus the things of the future spill over into those of the present and those of the present into those of the future.”
All of this is a gift from God. On every level — from our experience to the sacraments — God is trying to draw us into His eternity, where there is no more past or future but only an eternal present.
Why all these thoughts about time? Because of two saints we are celebrating in the heart of summer: St. Benedict on July 11 and St. Bonaventure on July 15.
St. Benedict lived during the cultural and political collapse of the Roman Empire. His deepest response to this crisis was to reorganize his use of time: to measure his days by the Liturgy of the Hours, rather than by the hours on the clock. In measuring his days by prayer he created the foundation of an alternative culture. He put God back in charge of time, and people — hungry for an alternative — flocked to him. Perhaps we could take a lesson from him?
St. Bonaventure served as General during a time of crisis for his religious order, the Franciscans. His response to that crisis — about which Pope Benedict wrote a book! — was to develop a theology of history. In response to religious crisis, St. Bonaventure focused on the soul’s journey to God and history’s journey toward the end times, and he shepherded the order from crisis into peace. Perhaps we could take a lesson from him?
It’s summer, and our sense of time is different. Along with St. Benedict, Pope Benedict and St. Bonaventure, let’s reflect more deeply on how all of time — past, present and future — belongs to God, how God makes a gift of all three to us and how we can more effectively give our time and our times to God.
