This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.
God “has put the timeless into their hearts,” the first reading tells us, even though we never fully discover the full scope of this work that He has done.
What is the timeless? Well, if we are to believe St. Paul, there are three things that last: Faith, Hope, and Charity (cf. 1 Cor. 13:13). Of course, faith and hope remain in eternity only with respect to their objects–God, and the possession of God–and thus, it may be said, far from disappearing, faith and hope are fulfilled forever in eternity.
So, these are the timeless, these are the lasting, these are the unchanging. By contrast, the first reading cycles through a list of contrasting pairs. It states that as regards everything else, that which is passing and not timeless, there is an appropriate time for each extreme: birth/death, sowing/reaping, tearing down/building, etc.
In the end, the three things that last drive us in different directions in this passing world, depending on circumstance–in particular supernatural Charity, that is, the virtue that moves us to give ourselves to God and to the welfare of neighbor. Take child-raising, for example. Sometimes, the loving thing is to embrace and show affection. Other times, out of love for our children and motivated by their long-term welfare, we adopt a stern stance and apply balanced punishment.
We call the virtue by which we judge the right (and loving) course of action “prudence.”
But far beyond human prudence, that is, common sense and sound judgement, there is the infinite ocean for us to explore of our relationship with God, whereby the Holy Spirit–with His infinite creativity and pure, rich love for humanity–can instruct us in paths to follow on our adventure through time that our human prudence would never suggest to us. There is no limit to the depths of love that we can plumb in the heart of God.
Consider, for example, the Holy Spirit’s creative solution to the impossible blind alley of sin that the human race had chosen: Create a maiden who, retroactively preserved from any touch of sin by her Son’s posterior sacrifice, gives her pure “yes” in full freedom to the re-entry of God into the world–this time, in the flesh, to take on sin and take it to its defeat and demise, and then rise victorious.
You don’t find more creative–or effective–solutions than that.
While striving to practice good judgement, if our prayer life is constant and committed and we are in a state of grace, we can grow in the degree to which that good judgement is more about listening to and adopting the counsel of this Sweet Guest of the Soul, rather than arriving at reasonable decisions through dry analysis. So it is that the saints display a wisdom that exceeds anything reachable by human effort alone.
So, God is about the timeless. He places the timeless in our hearts, and He helps us in our time through the Holy Spirit.
But today’s Gospel passage reminds us that God is no longer only about the timeless. He has subjected His own eternal self, incarnate in flesh, to the vicissitudes of time, and time’s very different demands of us at different moments. For Christ, too, there was a time to embrace, and a time to correct; a time to be born, and a time to die…and, a time to rise from the dead. Today He forewarns the disciples about His time to die, and they don’t like it. They want the timeless God, unconstrained by the shackles of our temporal limitations. And yet, it is by taking on our time, with all its constraints and vicissitudes, that God redeemed within us our ability to regain access to the timeless, and soar to its endless heights.
Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Explain to Jesus how hard it is sometimes to make the right decisions each day and to judge, in difficult circumstances, the right path forward within the concrete, complex, imperfect realities of time. Ask Him to send you the Holy Spirit in a “double portion” (cf. 2 Kgs. 2:9) to guide you to beautiful, creative solutions as you traverse time’s paths.
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