Today's man is strongly influenced by the spirituality of "presentism" coming from the Far East and by the philosophy of life of consumerism, which appeals more to our basic instincts and less to our reason, seeking to disconnect our actions in the present from their causes in the past, and their consequences in the future. The aim is to get people to live in the pseudo-eternal present of a consumerist nirvana.
When, in the last stage of our lives, we live in the true eternal present, Heaven, then the past and the future will no longer be important; but until then, and as long as we live limited by the coordinates of space and time, the past and the future are of the utmost importance.
Life is like a play in three times and three acts. Anyone who lives in the past is a dead living, because the past is no longer happening, it cannot be acted upon, it is closed, it is passed; "Water under the bridge does not move mills".
Anyone who lives in the present disintegrated and without reference to the past is a living-dead, because without the memory of the past, he is a reed shaken by the wind, and since he does not know where he comes from, he does not know who he is, he has no identity. Anyone who lives in the present disintegrated and without reference to the future, without a dream, without a project, does not know where he is going, and "for those who don't know where to go, there are no favourable winds".
Those who live only in the future miss out on many opportunities in the present and forget that for this future, in order to be possible, must have one foot in the present, that is, there are things in the present that must be done to prepare the project to be completed in the future; if the future is the roof of the house, the present is the foundations and the walls. A future without a present is a utopia, a fantasy; it is living in limbo in an eternal "standby".
Human life is the result of a balanced and harmonious living of the three times between which it follows We live in the present and only in the present; but by looking to the past, we discover who we are and the meaning of our lives; and by projecting ourselves into the future, we find the motivation for our living. The present is just one piece of the puzzle that in its totality includes the past and the future.
- The past is the reason, the present our action, the future our motivation.
- The past is the tradition, the present the action, the future the innovation.
- The past is what we were, the present what we are, the future what we are going to be.
- The past has been, the present is existing, the future is transcending.
- The past is God the Father who created us out of love, the present is God the Son who saved and saves us by giving us health here and now; and the future is God the Holy Spirit who animates, inspires and give us strength in our journey.
- The past is faith, the present is charity, the future is hope.
Faith identifies us with a past
Humanity’s heritage is not just made up of historical monuments, but of everything the human race is and has done over the 5 million years of its existence on this planet. All of this is genetically incorporated into the DNA of every child that comes into this world, it is something like Jung’s collective unconscious, it is part of us and defines us as such. The past is made up of all this.
Libris ex libris fiunt, when I want to create something new, in any field of knowledge, I have to research what already has been done in that area, in order to add to the fruit of my work. Only God has the ability to create out of nothing.
Faith in a personal God, creator of everything and everyone, who revealed himself through the prophets and then in his Son, who sent us the Holy Spirit, already has a history. My adherence to this faith leads me to be a part of this history and gives me identity and a sense of belonging to a people and a community.
The same is true on an individual level; I know what I am and what I am capable of when I look back and see how my talents and shortcomings have performed in various circumstances that life has thrown at me throughout my personal history. It is the approval of this past that gives me the sense of self-worth, I need to relate properly with myself, with God, with others and with my surroundings.
Even God, who lives in eternity, outside of space and the becoming of time, to present himself to mankind, made use of the fact that he had lived with them in the past, presenting himself to Moses as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob...
Hope projects us into the future
As the stubborn donkey didn't want to walk, the young man tied a carrot to the end of a string, which he hung on a stick, then mounted the donkey and put the carrot two feet in front of the donkey's snout. Hoping to bite the carrot, the donkey kept on walking, not realizing that the carrot was also moving.
Hope is faith with wheels; the dynamic faith that projects us into the future. We all need a "carrot" to walk on. The dream is the engine of life; what inspires our present is not in the present.
Martin Luther King was one of those who, projecting into the future, mortgaged his life on the struggle for equality between blacks and whites; a dream that he knew would not come true in his lifetime. The day before he was assassinated, inspired by Moses who after 40 years of desert wandering, saw the Promised Land, which he did not enter, from the top of Mount Nebo, he said: I am grateful to God because he has allowed me to see the Promised Land, I may not enter it with you but I am certain that we, as a people, will enter it one day.
You can only live meaningfully in the present if it is impregnated with the future. To live in the present without the presence of the future is to drift. And when the present is painful, it is hope for a better future that helps us endure it.
Charity fills our present
Unlike the past and the future, the present is in our hands, in it and only in it are we free to act. The present is the here and now of our lives, which should be full of actions, acts of charity and love. For us Christians to live is to love and to love is to serve, to place ourselves at the service of those who need it most.
Putting into proportion what Mother Teresa of Calcutta did, and how much there was to do in the face of so much poverty and misery, a journalist once said, "What Mother is doing is like a drop of water in the ocean"; to which she answered with much humility, "Yes, but if I didn’t do it, the ocean would have one less drop of water".
God does not ask us to revolutionize the world, or to make it better, he only asks us to do our best. In the parable of the talents, the one who achieved more is not praised more than the one who achieved less; in the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, those who worked all day did not receive more than those who worked for only one hour; in the parable of the sower, those who produced 100% are not exalted more than those who produced 60% or those who only produced 30%.
Much or little, all the Lord asks of us is that we bear fruit. That our lives be productive; that we leave here more than what we find here. That we be part of the solution and not part of the problem; in other words, that our living and acting be a contribution to solving the problems of this world and not a contribution to making them worse.
Three virtues, three popes
There are those who want to see an incarnation of the theological virtues in the lives of the last three popes of the Church. John Paul II, the one who crossed the threshold of the third millennium, is the Pope of Hope; Benedict XVI, who wrote an encyclical on faith, proclaimed the Year of Faith and his whole life as a theologian focused on the reasonableness of faith, is therefore the Pope of Faith; Pope Francis, by the name he chose, for his words and gestures, is the Pope of Charity.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
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