Time is Life

If time were merely money, we could perhaps afford to waste it. But time is life, and we don’t know how much of it we have left.

This year has been nothing short of devastating to many. For some, this will be the first Christmas they will spend without a loved one. For others, the loss of their jobs and income will mean a more somber holiday and greater anxiety for the road ahead. I know one person, having already lost his only child many years ago, is now steeling himself to suffer the impending loss of his cancer stricken wife who is presently living out her last days at home. I pray the couple makes it through one more Christmas (their last together).

However difficult this year has been, one thing is certain. Good times or bad times, nothing lasts forever. There is something here for us to ponder more deeply as we look forward to Christmas. Advent isn’t just about anticipating the coming of Christ at Christmas, but the second coming of Christ in judgment. Yes, it’s not as appealing a picture as Christmas puddings, mistletoe, carols and presents, but as Catholic Christians, Advent is traditionally a time when we remember the four last things — Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell.

We are all now one year closer to eternity. For many people this past year, time was no more. One moment they were in time, the next moment they were in eternity. God has given us these days to work out our salvation, but how well do we use them?

To quote St. Alphonsus Liguori:

“O time despised during life, you will be ardently desired by worldlings at the hour of death. The thought that they must very soon appear before Almighty God, to give an account of their lives, fills them with untold confusion and anguish. They will ask for another year, another month or another day to settle the accounts of their conscience, but they will ask in vain. To obtain a single hour they would give all their wealth and worldly possessions, but that hour shall not be given.”

Let us therefore exert ourselves to the utmost to draw closer to God as we draw closer to eternity, and not further and further away from our salvation. Happiness is not that job, that prominent project, that new house or big payout, that award or recognition from our peers.

Happiness is in relationships. Firstly with God, then with those nearest to us: our spouses, our children, our family and friends. And then with those we are privileged to meet every day — the cleaning lady, the sales assistant, the old man selling tissues to make a living, the vagrant sleeping on the street; all of whom are an invitation to take the baby Jesus into our arms and to offer Him a caress and a smile.

Let us love much and do much while there is still time. For time isn’t money. Money we can afford to lose and make again. Time is life. And life is in relationships.

Do now, what, on the day of judgment, you would then wish you would have done. For at the moment of death, the time of grace will have passed, the time of justice will have come. Indeed, the world with all its seductions is passing away; only the man who does the will of God abides forever.

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Photo: The 12th Century St. Nicholas’ Church in Carrickfergus, County Antrim / K. Mitch Hodge, Unsplash / PD-US