‘There is a season for everything, a time for every purpose under heaven’ (Ecclesiastes 3:1)
We human beings like to mark special moments in time – a birthday, a wedding anniversary, a golden jubilee, a centenary. This year as we, Columban Sisters, mark 100 years of missionary life, I tend to reflect on the mystery of time. I think of time as a precious gift – time that measures our hours and days, that enables us to grow and change; that gives us an opportunity to share in the creative work of God.
Living in the NOW we can choose to look back and reflect on what has brought us to this moment. It is a source of wonder to me that a group of women who came together in the early part of the 20th century inspired my life. What is it that connects me, or women from Korea, Myanmar and the Philippines in the early 21st century, with that small band of women who were the founding members of the Missionary Sisters of St Columban in 1924? The connection seems to be a common understanding of time and its purposes – a shared experience of meaning.
Here we touch into something lasting, something that is not limited to a particular time, place, or culture. If we go to the depths of anything, we’ll meet something substantial, true, and with a timeless quality. You gaze in awe at a sunset as your ancestors did; like them you know what it is to love deeply; you experience the mystery of death as you accompany a loved one on that final journey. These deep experiences draw us into the meeting point “of the timeless with time” (TS Eliot: Four Quartets)
By becoming one with us in the incarnation Jesus leads us into these more profound experiences which become the pledge and promise of the eternal. In these moments we meet the God for whom ‘‘a thousand years are like a single day’’ (Psalm 90:4).
Perhaps Pádraic Pearse is expressing something of this depth in his poem ‘The Fool’, where he says:
“…And the wise have pitied the fool that hath striven to give a life
In the world of time and space …
To a dream that was dreamed in the heart, and that only the heart could hold.”
For Pearse, as for all who have heard God’s invitation, it is a matter of the heart, of a ‘yes’ to the meaning hidden in the depth of our lives. A question we may ask ourselves – am I living God’s dream for me? Jesus says: “Love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12.). All of us as his disciples are invited into this love, which is in time and transcends time and is the gift received at our baptism.
Time passes. As it was in 1924, so now 100 years later, we live in a very broken world; a world at war, threatening life and the life of the planet. Jesus too was familiar with such a world. As the compassionate healer, he challenges us to live compassionately, attuned to the Spirit who inspires new and creative ways of living the Gospel, in response to the needs of the poor and suffering of the world of our time.
Sr Patricia Byrne