There is No Time Like The Present

I have always been the worrying type.  Ever since I can remember, I had one eye on the past and the other eye on the future. Of course, I am speaking metaphorically here because I do not have chameleon eyes. I was not walking down the street with my eyes facing in different directions.

I might as well have been, however, since I was clearly not watching where I was going. My past eye was focusing on all my so-called mistakes and missed opportunities, as well as the wrongs done to and by me.  And my future eye was peering at the traps that lay ahead, just waiting for me to fall into them.

Does this sound familiar? It should because I venture to say that many of us have the same double vision.  Thankfully, words of spiritual wisdom are available to gently steer us away from the past and future and toward our eternal present.

Two Starting Points:  Penance and Sanctifying The Now

The venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen once observed that most human suffering comes from excessive preoccupation with either the past, via memory, or the future, through our the imaginations.  Archbishop Sheen reminds us that the Sacrament of Penance blots out the past by remission of our sins.  This same sacrament lightens our anxiety regarding the future through hope for divine mercy through continued repentance and amendment of our lives.

Through confession we cure the memory of the past as well as the imagination regarding the future by cleansing the stifling and paralyzing anxiety and obsession with what is beyond our control.  Archbishop Sheen also wrote of the “sanctification of the moment” or ‘the now.’ Our Lord told us “Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil” (Mt 6:34).

One way of interpreting these words is that Our Lord is telling us that we are walking contradictions.  On one hand, our human frailty seeks to avoid suffering and carrying our crosses as much as possible.  On the other hand, we have a habit of borrowing crosses from our memory and imagination to burden our present.  Rather than sanctify our present (and our presence) before God, we spend most of our time venerating a past we should put behind us and a future that only lives in our fantasy.

The Past and Future as Fertile Grounds for Sin

I once read that we should treat the past as a newspaper – read it, digest its contents, and move on.  But there is also nothing wrong with learning from past mistakes.  The problem occurs when we turn that lesson into a college major, or a graduate school, or advanced doctoral studies! We go over past stumbles until they become regrets and past hurts until they become resentments.

Too often, we mentally note those who have crossed us, turning our daily journey into an exercise in spiritual road rage.  We cannot truly forgive because we never truly forget.  It is in this soil of the past that we pretend to plant the seeds of mercy.

But to the extent that we dwell in the past, we limit our ability to embrace God’s mercy and practice our own mercy toward others. Wrapped in regrets and resentments, we become incapable of sanctifying a present we are too busy to appreciate.

The future is fertile soil for sin as well.  We chain ourselves in imagined misfortune unable to leave all to the Will of God in trust and faith.  Whether we realize it or not, that twisted illusion of the reality that awaits us becomes a delusion we cannot escape as we push God’s love to the side.

The sin of both obsessions, past and future, is that we imagine ourselves as our own gods, declaring our fortune and dictating our fate oblivious to The Almighty’s loving, Divine Mercy and Wisdom.  Even God’s Commandments focus on living God’s Law in the here and now.

Sanctifying Today

Many of the saints also offer us guidance about how to live in the present.  St. Gianna Molla, for instance, advises us to entrust our past to God’s mercy and our future to Divine Providence. She encourages us to live moment to moment thanking God for all that He gives us each day in His Goodness.  St. Therese of Liseux also observed that patience is nearly impossible unless one lives in the present.  Similarly, St. Faustina aspired to live each day as if it were the last day of her life, in order to fully appreciate each moment in the Presence of God.

Fr. Jacques Philippe observed that true freedom is only found in the present, for we cannot impact the past nor control the future.  He added that unless we live in the present, we will spend our lives waiting to live.

We see that each moment is a fleeting opportunity for sanctification. Once past, its value lies only as a brief example of what was possible in that moment. If it was not embraced, it should become a brief lesson to grow from toward our eternal sanctification.  If it was embraced, it should be only a brief steppingstone toward that eternal destiny.  Anything else in the past, behind us, or in the future before us, is but a distraction from the serenity of the present, where God waits for us in the silence of His eternal love, mercy, and wisdom.

The Silence of Now and the Noise of the Rest

Cardinal Robert Sarah speaks of silence as where we can find God. Noise is what distracts us from God.  God exists in eternity and in the now as well.  Christ’s primary metaphors for this Eternal Now are “The Kingdom of God” and “The Kingdom of Heaven.” Both are already all around us if we bother to look (John 4:35-36).

The past and the future are the noise surrounding the serenity and silence where God is found in our lives.  And the eternal irony is that the more we embrace and sanctify our present, the more we will ensure our eternity.