We are spatial-temporal beings, that is, we occupy a determined space for a specific time. Our body is an aggregation and combination of different elements of organic and inorganic matter, which coalesce for a time and then disintegrate, each of these elements returning to its simpler and dissociated state until it becomes again part of another life form.
Water, for example, despite being inorganic, is the most abundant molecule in our body – making up to 60% of an adult's body and 80% in a child's. The same water molecule that is now part of our organism was probably once upon the time at the bottom of the ocean and came down to earth as rain, and then was ingested by some animal. The water that was part of the body of some extinct dinosaurs can very well be part of our body today.
It is our genetic code that allows for the agglutination and interaction of the various inorganic and organic elements. Once formed at the conception of a life form, the genetic code exists until its end and supervises all its vital functions. Like the blueprint that an architect draws for the construction of a building, so is the DNA the blueprint for the building of a body: it contains all the necessary information for its survival and growth.
DNA is created at the moment when the two half cells - our mother's egg and our father's spermatozoon - join, forming the first cell of our organism from which all other cells are derived, and it is only destroyed long after our body has decomposed.
We are made from the elements that exist in the outer space created after the Big Bang; we are basically star dust that inhabit an environment for a determined time. As spatial beings, we are made up of elements that exist in space and, at the same time, we occupy the space that these same elements provide for us. The space we occupy is perfectly located within our planet, in our solar system, in our galaxy, together with the countless of galaxies that make up our universe.
As for the other coordinate, that of time, which defines our life or our existence as spatial-temporal beings, we have to make a distinction as to what type of time we are referring to. If space is defined by the coordinates of height - width - length, which is three-dimensional, then time is also three-dimensional, that is, there are three types of time: cosmic - geological - historical. Historical time which is the object of our study, is also three-dimensional, because it is made up of past - present - future.
Cosmic - geological - historical
Some would say that there is a fourth type of time, the thermodynamic time, which is a relative time that varies depending on the velocity at which the observer and the observed move relative to one another. Time is inversely proportional to velocity, that is, the greater the velocity at which an object moves, the lesser is the time that elapses for it. That's why Einstein did not speak about time and space as separate entities, but as a single entity. In this chapter, we will talk about the most understandable dimension of time, that is, the measurable time, in years, days, hours, minutes, and seconds.
Cosmic time
The NASA scientist Carl Sagan (1934-1996) became famous in the eighties for his TV programs about the cosmos. An excellent communicator, he managed to explain difficult concepts of astronomy in a way that could be grasped by an audience with little knowledge in this field. In order to facilitate the understanding of cosmic time, he created a cosmic calendar, placing the most important events of the universe from its creation to our present day, over the course of a year beginning with January 1 and ending on December 31.
Eleven months of the year:
January 1 - Beginning of the Big Bang
January 7 - Birth of the first stars
March 1 - Emergence of the Milky Way and other galaxies
September 9 - Origin and formation of the solar system
September 14 - Origin of the Earth
September 25 - Emergence of the first forms of terrestrial life
October 2 - formation of the oldest rocks ever recorded
November 30 - beginning of sexual reproduction
Days in the month of December:
01 - Constitution of the current atmosphere
16 - Formation of the first helminths (worms)
17 – Biological Big Bang: formation of large numbers of living beings during the Cambrian Period
18 - Formation of the first vertebrate living beings
25 - Origin and reign of dinosaurs
26 - Origin of the first mammals
28 - Formation of the first birds
30 - Extinction of dinosaurs
Hours on December 31:
22:30 - The first humans
23:46 - Discovery of fire
23:56 - End of the last Ice period
23:59 - Cave paintings in Europe
23:59:20 - Discovery of agriculture
23:59:35 - Early Neolithic
23:59:50 - Emergence of the first great civilizations
23:59:58 – Formation of Crusades in Early Middle Ages
23:59:59 - Beginning of commercial capitalism and European colonial expansion.
Geological time
Our planet is old if we look at its age of 4.6 billion years. But if we compare its age with that of the Universe - 13 billion years – then it is relatively young. The geological time scale, like that of cosmic time, is measured in millions and billions of years. As Geo means Earth in Greek, geological time refers to the history of our planet and its transformations, up to the emergence and development of life and from there until the appearance of human life.
Historical time
It begins with prehistory. It is said that if the geological time were to be reduced to one day, then the first human civilizations would have emerged during the last three seconds of that day. This makes us understand that Earth had a very long history of preparation before life was possible and, after that, until it developed and evolved, reaching human life.
The unidimensional or horizontal characteristic of time
A flat plane made up of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines is two-dimensional. When referring to a three-dimensional plane or space, we speak of length, height and width. When we talk about time, however, it has only one dimension. The historical time, whether of an individual person or an association, tribe, country, is represented graphically by a straight line drawn from the left to the right.
To be born – to grow – to reproduce – to die, this is the inescapable sequence, the path without alternative of all living beings, whether it is a very simple bacterium or a more complex being, like a human. Life is a straight line that began at some point in the past, which we are aware of in the present, that is, that we are alive in the here and now, and we know that it will prolong for some time in the future until it ends in its spatial-temporal dimension.
A merchant from Baghdad sent his servant to the market one day. Shortly thereafter, the man returned agitated and trembling with fear. "I love being in the market square,” he told the merchant, “but today, it was there that I came across a stranger, and when I looked at his face, I discovered that it was Death himself. He made a threatening gesture at me and then disappeared. Now I am scared, I beg you, please lend me a horse so that I can flee to Samarra and get as far away from Death as possible."
The merchant, worried about his servant, gave him his fastest horse; the servant mounted the horse and went off in the blink of an eye. Hours later, the merchant himself went to the market and saw Death among the crowd. He approached him and asked, "What did you mean by the threatening gesture you made at my poor servant this morning?"
"It was not a threatening gesture, sir,” said Death. "It was a gesture of surprise to find him in Baghdad." "And why shouldn't he be in Baghdad, if this is where he lives?" "Well... it is just that I was supposed to meet him tonight in Samarra, you know?"
Past - Present - Future
Time ends the year, the month and the hour,
The strength, the art, the morning, the fortress;
Time ends fame and wealth,
Time the same time of itself cries.
Luis de Camões
Einstein formulated the Theory of Relativity to explain the universe. The people vulgarized it, applying it to all circumstances of human life and knowledge by concluding that "everything is relative". Speaking of the past, the present and the future, in the context of human life, none of them exist in a pure state.
Both the past and the future are already found represented in the present, so the present does not always refer exclusively to the present, it can also refer to both the past and the future as well. Just as the past and the future sometimes pay a visit to the present, the present can also move into the past and the future. The present in itself is what is happening, but when we think about what is happening, it is already the past.
The past is gone, but never stops going; the future arrives, but never stops arriving, it keeps moving forward like the carrot tangling in front of the donkey. As long as we exist, the three-time coordinates exist with us and we only stop having a present and a past when we no longer have a future, that is, when we die. As the three live together, the three also die together, with a few seconds apart. We die from front to back: first the future dies, then the present and only then the past.
We’re a flying arrow that someone shot in the past. Depending on the circumstances of life, we ourselves can have some control over the direction the arrow takes, but we know that "All roads lead to Rome", that fate is common, that death is both certain and uncertain. It is certain because it's the only thing we know for sure about our future, and as Heidegger says, we are being-for-death. It is also uncertain, on the other hand, because we don't know where, when or how we're going to die, and I guestimate that no one is interested in knowing that.
If there is eternal life, as we Christians believe, then the future and the past also die, because they are no longer interactive in the present. Life made of moving time is no longer a reality. What we were previously, we are still, and what we are today is a composition of both the good and the bad we lived through up to now. The past is like the scaffolding in the construction of a building. When the construction is over, with our death, the scaffolding is no longer needed: what we have become is now what we will be forever in eternity.
Our physical body also belongs to this category of scaffolding, because through it and with it we build our being, our spiritual body, and when this is built, time ceases in its future and past dimensions, and remains in its present dimension, an eternal present in God and with God.
As with the North Pole and the South Pole, the East and the West also merge at one point; similarly, in our life, the past and the future will merge in an eternal present. As we have said in another article, our planet moves from left to right; in order not to get lost, we look to the North, where the compass needle points; with the North as the point of reference, the West is to our left and the East to our right.
If human time moves from the past, which is graphically located on our left and corresponds with west, to the future which lies on our right and corresponds with east, then we do not move towards the sunset, or west, of our lives, but towards the east, to the beginning or the rising to eternal life.
We are from the planet Earth that rotates, left to right, that is, counterclockwise and, just as our mother Earth moves, so too we move against the hands of the clock, as if to say that we are eternal beings because we walk against time, because we impose ourselves on time and not vice versa.
On the time level, with the past corresponding to west and the future to east, our life is not moving towards an end, but towards a beginning that is eternity. Our death is the birth to eternity just as our first birth was a death to the life we had in the paradise of the maternal womb. From the maternal womb, we move to the bosom of this world, and from the bosom of this world, we will move into the bosom of the One who created us - God.
The past
Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.’ Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, ‘Do not write, “The King of the Jews”, but, “This man said, I am King of the Jews.”’ Pilate answered, ‘What I have written I have written.’ John 19:19-22
Pilate reminded the high priests of the Jews that the past is past and cannot be altered. The historical facts cannot be modified in the present. "Against facts there are no arguments" is an expression used in Law to say that there is no way to deny whatever happened and is apparent to everyone.
“A lo hecho pecho” - says a Spanish proverb, meaning, you beget a child, now nurse him; a fact is that which is the most objective in the life of the human being. A woman nursing her newborn said, "I may not have wanted this baby, he may have come unplanned, but once made I nurse him, he's a helpless child and is without fault in being called to life, whatever may have been the circumstances."
Faced with facts, there is sometimes an attitude of denial, whereby the person tries not to accept them, pretending that they did not happen. There are people who say "This can’t be happening to me!" But if it did, what happened can't be undone. What is done, is done, what is written, is written, as Pilate said. This was his way of reconciling himself with what history would say about him, one last attempt not to look so bad in the captured historical fact.
The past as "present"
Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it's called the present. Unknown author
The past can show itself in our present like a stalker. When the past haunts us, we live like fugitives in the present and feel remorse for whatever we've done. "The Fugitive" was a very popular series in the sixties about a doctor who had been wrongfully convicted for the murder of his wife and to escape the death penalty, he fled the law, and was on the run until he found enough evidence to prove his innocence and expose the identity of the real murderer. His present was composed of his time on the run, he could not have a normal life, could not practice his profession as a doctor. This is how the person who is pursued by the guilt of the past lives: he cannot live the present with meaning.
I have heard women in their 80s still obsessively confessing to the abortion they committed when they were 15. It is certain that God has long forgiven them, have forgotten their sin of abortion, and has turned the page, but these women cannot forgive themselves and therefore continue to confess this sin over and over again.
We cannot extricate ourselves from our past, since it contains our identity, who we are. A person without historical memory no longer knows who he is, as it happens in old age with dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Therefore, since we cannot get rid of our past, we need to be reconciled with it. "If you cannot defeat and wipe out your enemy, befriend him"; we must do the same with our past. In order to be 100% functional in the present, we must be able to cast a benign glance at our past.
It is said that we learn more from our mistakes than from our successes. This idea is implied in the word for sin in Hebrew, "hhatat", which means to miss the target. Perfection is made up of many imperfections, and what is right is made up of many lessons from the many wrongs. Mistake is part of the training in any art or skill, and the same thing happens in life.
Mistake, sin, what we have done wrong, or the event itself, is the box that contains a precious gift inside. When we receive a gift, we tear apart the beautiful and flashy wrapping paper, as well as the box, to get to the gift inside, then we throw the paper with the box into the trash. We must do the same with our past negative deeds. The box is the act itself, the lesson we learned from it is the gift. Only the gift should be brought forth to our present, to our consciousness; the act itself, the box, must be forgotten, it must stay in the past.
I stumbled again and with the same stone, in a matter of love I will never learn… as Júlio Iglesias sings in one of his songs. Certain lessons take longer to learn; hence we can fall into the same mistake more than once. And there may be even issues we may never learn about, as the singer says.
The felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem – This is the phrase of the Paschal proclamation at the Easter Vigil Mass. Oh happy fault that merited such and so great a Redeemer! The past cannot be modified, but it can be reinterpreted in the light of the present. This is the idea behind the “Felix Culpa”. If Adam and Eve had not sinned, the Son of God made Man would not have come to us.
There is no evil from which good does not come
On a remote island, the only survivor of a shipwreck prayed fervently to God at every moment to help him get out of there. And every day he scanned the horizon in search of help, but it never came. Tired of waiting, he began to build a small hut to protect himself and the few things he had salvaged from the wreck, preparing himself for a longer wait.
One day, on his way back from looking for food, he found his little hut in flames after it was struck by lightning. The flames and smoke rose so high that he couldn't put out the fire and he lost everything. Confused and overwhelmed, and angry with God, he fell asleep on the beach, and when he woke up early the next morning, he heard the siren of a ship and a small speedboat coming to rescue him. Asking how they had found him, the captain replied, "We saw the smoke signals you sent out."
This is just one of the many stories of this nature that I could quote here that shows just how characteristic this Portuguese proverb is. Good and evil are found mixed together in our lives: there are good that cause evil and evil that cause good. Furthermore, as the parable of weeds among the wheat states (Matthew 13:24-30), it is not always clear at the onset what is good and what is evil, only at the end will it be known.
In the ups and downs of our lives we must not lose our hope or our heads, because "There is no evil that always lasts nor good that always endures". Every negative or positive fact must be judged in a larger context of our lives and not only in the context in which it occurs.
From the point of view of our faith, a Christian must never use words like good luck or bad luck because these are superstitious. For the Christian there is only the divine providence: nothing happens outside of it. God the Father who brought us into life always takes care of us, even when it does not seem so. When evil happens in our lives, we believe that it is for some greater good, that is, that it is a cross that leads to a resurrection or a desert crossing that leads to a promised land.
Past as present perfect
A verb in the present perfect indicative expresses an action that began in the past and extends into the present, that is, it is not yet over. It unites the past with the present and the present with the past. For example, "I've been studying a lot for exams" means I started studying some time ago and I'm still studying.
Our life essentially takes place in this verb tense. Firstly, because we continue to live, but our life began in the past. Secondly, because we face the present or the future with our baggage from the past; it is this that contains our historical memory, our identity. Finally, because many of the issues that occupy us in the present have their origin in the past. Psychologically, our past always influences our present in a conscious or unconscious way.
The present
"We never live; we are always in the expectation of living." - Voltaire (1694-1778)
"Do not dwell in the past. Do not dream of the future. Concentrate the mind on the present moment." - Buddha
The present is the time of action, the real time in which we can make things happen, the only time over which we have power. We are thoughts, feelings and actions. Thoughts can be of the past, even when the act of thinking always occurs in the present; or it may be of the future, when it projects itself into a reality that does not yet exist, that is, utopian in the Greek sense of the word, that there is no place in the here and now. Feelings or emotions are what is most present in us; both pleasure and pain, as well as all other feelings, anchor us in the here and now.
However, there is nothing more transitory, more in motion, more instantaneous and faster than the present moment. As the picture above illustrates, it is just a point where the past and the future meet. It is the moment in which the future turns into the past in passing through the present. The Earth moves from left to right, we run from the left, which is the past, to the right, which is the future. What comes to my mind is the image of a hamster running inside a moving wheel – that’s how we are on our planet.
To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade
To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a Mother who gave birth to a premature baby
To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet
To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask the person who missed the train.
To realize the value of ONE SECOND, ask the person who just avoided an accident.
To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics.
Marc Levy
As the quote from the French novelist Marc Levy shows us, the way we human live our present moment is not so much like a point corresponding to a second that hastily passes from the future to the past. We cling to the concept of the contemporary so to extend the present moment, both to the right (future) and to the left (past) and we say things like "within two hours", “two hours ago", "today", "this week", "this month", "during this year", etc.
And so, we feel a certain comfort, as if we can stop the moving hand of time. It is only when we change the months and the years, or when we celebrate our birthdays, that we realize that time is passing inexorably by and that every moment is unique and does not repeat itself. Every minute lost is truly lost, the minutes that we have ahead of us are others and do not replace the ones lost. We cannot bathe twice in the same river, as the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus said.
The illusion and fallacy of competitiveness and competence
"I have no children and I shudder just at the thought. The examples I see around me do not advise temerity. Hordes of friends form the respective offspring and, despite their blessings, they do not lead restful lives. On the contrary, they are invariably plunged into anguish and anxiety particularly of pathological nature.
I can see why. One or two hundred years ago, life depended on the birthright, social standing and family fortune. Today, no. The child is born, not into a family, but into an athletics track, with the barriers of practice: kindergarten at three, swimming at four, piano lessons at five, school at six. And an army of teachers, tutors, educators and psychologists, as if the child were a race foal. (colt is male, filly a female and foal either male or female)
This is the criminal ideology that has definitely settled in modern societies: life is not to be lived - but is built by personal and professional successes, one after another, in a geometric progression to infinity. One needs the dream job, the dream house, the dream spouse, the dream friends, the dream vacation, the dream restaurants, the dream lovemaking.
No wonder that, by 2020, a third of the world's population is nursing fervently on Prozac. It's the old story of the carrot and donkey: the more we have, the more we want. The more we want, the more we despair. Meritocracy begets an insatiable dissatisfaction that will eventually destroy the slightest trace of humanity. Which is still a pity! If people went back to reading the classics, especially Montaigne, they would know that the ultimate goal of life is not excellence, but happiness!"
João Pereira Coutinho (journalist) 2011
Parents project on their children everything they wish they had been, using them almost like puppets. We no longer let children live with a loose rein in their childhood, like I did in mine. Childhood, adolescence and youth are times of rigorous preparation. Children and especially youth suffer from this dictatorship; that’s why come weekend, they desire to be released in every way and form, through orgies and drunken revelries, with drugs, alcohol and sex as a break from the straitjacket to which they are bound in order to be able, in the opinion of adults, to triumph in life, in an increasingly competitive world. The pressure which they are subjected to is cruel in every way: economically, socially, affectively.
Higher education, employment, engagement, buying a house, a car etc., everything has to be achieved in a short time, in a hellish race. Those who are without one of these "amenities" cannot consider themselves happy and can be the object of derision on the part of the so-called victors.
3 X 8 = 24
Our 24-hour day is divided into three groups of eight hours each. Eight plus eight is sixteen, plus eight is 24. Eight hours of rest, plus eight hours of work, plus eight hours of what? Fun? For many, it is indeed this: working to eat and have fun, bread and circus as the ancient Romans used to say.
The eight hours of work and the eight hours of rest are at the service of each other; we rest to be able to work, and we work to be able to support ourselves. Work and rest are not life, they serve to keep us alive. Life is what we do with the third group of eight. Each day, sixteen hours keep us alive and eight hours when we truly live. During a lifetime of 75 years, we spend 25 years working, another 25 years sleeping, and we only truly live for 25 years: it is these years that justify whether or not we have lived; they are the reason for our being alive.
Do not work for the food that perishes... John 6: 27 - Unlike the lives of other living beings, our life cannot be reduced to the vicious circle of working to eat and eating to work. Being alive and living are not the same thing; we do not live to stay alive, but we are alive to live. Against this backdrop, how sad and meaningless are the lives of those who spend their time and energies in a hustle bustle, wasting their lives to preserve life, to stay alive, as if in this way they could prolong it forever. "You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” Luke 12:20
Do only what you like in life – in addition to the eight hours we can dedicate to our vocation, we must also conquer the eight hours of work, so that we will not only live eight hours, but 16. The ideal is really this: that our job is our hobby and our hobby is our job, that is, that we enjoy what we do and for which we have prepared ourselves professionally.
I always remember what my father used to say before going to work at a textile factory, especially for the night shift, "There I go to the exile." But the hours he spent in the countryside working on the land seemed short to him because he liked what he did, and so he used to come home well into the night. The hours at the factory, however, were not spent with the same pleasure, although he was a good worker and tried to weave more pieces than others.
When we don't like our job, when we don't like what we do, we are really slaves and not free. After having done everything well and being pleased with what He did, God gave the creation to Man as incomplete. That is why He gave Man the power to create, not out of nothing as God did, but from the simple elements He created. Our work should therefore be a creation, it should be an art more than a craft. However, when from the start we do not like our work and somehow, we don’t have another alternative, it is up to us to make it enjoyable and then to do it with joy.
We all have an inborn like for sugary drinks; however, as we grow up, we develop a taste for beer and wine, and set aside our inborn appetite for sugary drinks. The same can be true of our work: we can develop a taste for it and be creative in such a way that we live not only eight, but sixteen hours every day.
The fundamental option as a commitment - The fundamental option is a decision that is made about the whole of our life, it is the objective, the goal, what gives meaning, color and flavor to all the days of our life. It is the flame that is maintained by the fuel, energy and time of our life. It is the point of support of the lever that lifts the world in the Archimedes’ principle. It is the motivation, the inspiration that brings together all our resources and puts them at the service of a goal, a target chosen by us.
Life is made up of many options and decisions; they are the ones that give color, flavor, aroma and meaning to our life. These small choices often refer to one or more aspects of our life; they can affect us a lot or a little, but they do not affect our entire life. The fundamental option, on the other hand, is the decision of all decisions, the master option, the mother of all options because it refers to all present and future life of an individual. Most of the time it is irreversible, it is the reason of our living, it is the cause that we will feed with our time and energy, it is the mouth of which we are the bread.
The cause, or the fundamental option, that Nelson Mandela fed with his life was the end of apartheid in South Africa; for Beethoven, it was music; for Picasso, painting; for Gandhi, India’s independence in a nonviolent way; for some parents, it is their children; for teachers, it is students; for doctors, it is the sick.... More than just a profession, life is a mission.
There is no life without commitment - They live as if they will never die and die as if they had never lived. Dalai Lama
When the time comes to choose our fundamental option, we are at the crossroad of our lives; or, as it is more common to think today, at least in Europe, we are at the roundabout of our lives. We can't stay there forever, not even longer than it's appropriate. Often, when we stay undecided for too long, life ultimately decides for us, or at least the government does, as is the case in some countries of the de facto unions between young people: after a while the state considers them married. In Lisbon, there is a roundabout called "Rotunda do Relógio" or the roundabout clock - while we remain undecided, time passes and some opportunities in life do not come a second time....
The future
"The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable." - Lucius Séneca
“Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? (…) And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” Matthew 6:25, 27
The only thing we know about the future is that death is certain, secure, and going to happen, but death is also uncertain as to the day and time it will happen. Nor should this worry us because, as Karl Marx said, as long as we are, death is not and when it is, we are not. The spirituality that serves a Christian the best is that of a nomad; for this reason, from the beginning, Yahweh does not hide his predilection for Abel who was a shepherd and his dislike for Cain who was a farmer. A shepherd is a nomad who follows his cattle, while a farmer is sedentary and tends to settle down in life.
We are pilgrims in search of a destination that is in the future. To stop searching is to die and as we do not have a permanent dwelling here, we must love God above all else and walk towards Him uprooted from things and people, because we will lose things and people, but Him we will never lose and therefore, we must cling only to Him.
To be versus to do
The Jews thought that because they were children of Abraham that they were already saved. The truth, according to the Gospel of Matthew 25, is that we will not be judged by who we are, but by what we do. As for being, John the Baptist said that God could raise up children for Abraham out of these stone (Matthew 3:9). Similarly, according to Matthew 25, any good work, no matter how small, has worth in God’s eyes and is always trinitarian, because it is good for us and for others, and it glorifies God, who is the Father of all.
Many seek status, advantages, titles, prestige, or those high places that the Gospel denounces so often. True prestige comes from within, not from the outside; true prestige does not come from the position we hold, that is, from outside of us, but from the way we perform this position, that is, from within us. For God, it is not important what we are, but the way we are what we are.
You will know them by their fruits. Matthew 7:16 - True prestige comes not from the office you hold, but from the way you hold the office that you hold. A holy street sweeper has more worth in the eyes of God and men than a corrupt prime minister.
Simeon and Anna
Simeon is attentively waiting for the coming of God's glory to the temple. This old man doesn't dwell in the past, but in the future.
By the time we reach 50, more than half of our life is in the past; when we reach 80 years old, almost all of our life belongs to the past, there is not much to hope for. Simeon and Anna were old, but still living for the future, they were full of hope. They looked forward and not backward; in looking back, Lot's wife was paralyzed, transformed into a salt statue.
Simeon and Anna had a purpose in their lives. Einstein had said that to be happy we should not cling to anything or anyone, but must seek a goal in life and pursue it. Simeon and Anna both had one and, once it was accomplished, Simeon was willing to leave for God.
The best is yet to come
It was said about a woman with an incurable disease, whose faith was like that of Teresa of Avila, who wished to die and be reunited with the spouse of her soul. Therefore, without dramas or tragedies, she prepared her own funeral to the smallest detail, wanting it to serve as a lesson to the other members of her Christian community. She died eventually, and during the wake her open casket was exposed in the church, and to everyone’s amazement, instead of seeing her with a rosary in her hands, they saw her with a knife and a fork.
The parish priest in his homily explained that this had been her wish and that she had gotten the idea from the parish banquets she attended. Whenever the waiter collected her plate, he would always say, "Keep the knife and fork, because the best is yet to come."
When old age comes, when all we have on our face is wrinkle, when we can no longer walk not even with the aid of a walker, when we can no longer see what’s under our very nose or hear the honking of cars, when we go to the pharmacy more often than we go to a coffee shop, then we know that suffering has come to stay, but we also know that the best is yet to come, because we are not walking towards the end of our life, but towards the beginning of eternity which is not an extension of time but its absence; this is the Christian hope.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
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