Now is the Time!
 Welcome back! I hope you all had a good break. After some time visiting my family, I was able to squeeze in my annual retreat. For five days I lived in a simple, but comfortable hermitage in the woods. Each day I woke up naturally, celebrated Mass, prayed, read, walked the grounds, ate simply, and went to bed early. It was wonderful. I like doing my retreat between Christmas and New Year’s as it is such a natural time to look back on the past year to take stock of its many blessings and to hope and dream a little for the year to come. Of course, our designation of a “new year” is a little arbitrary. The path of the earth around the sun aside, in some sense it is a “new year” because we say it is. We live in chronos - linear, measured, chronological time. And as useful as this is on this earth (think schedules, appointments, etc.), we can all too easily forget the there is another kind of time - kairos. This is time in the sense of “Now is the time!” It doesn’t mean a specific chronological moment, but the right time, an opportune moment. When it comes to our life in relationship with God, there is never a bad or a wrong time. Now is always the right time. We need not wait for some chronological marker, but can always begin now. As we enter into this new calendar year 2019 (by our designation) let’s commit ourselves to seizing upon the seemingly infinite opportune moments before us. Now is the time! Fr. Thom |
|
