“Now is the favourable time”

( A Lenten reflection)

If we remove the article ‘the’ from the above statement of St.Paul,  four words remain – now, is, favourable, time.  All the four words are intimately linked and mean the same.

Let us start with the word ‘is’. It is not difficult to identify the same meaning in ’is’ and ‘now’.   ‘Is’  is something that is now, in the present moment. That is why we call it the present tense.

Let us take next the word ‘time’.  It is much more difficult to see how ‘now’ and’ time’ are related. Some even speak of time and now as opposites. It all depends on the meaning we give to the word ’time’.  What is ‘time’? When we are talking about time we mean one of these three – past, present, future.   If we say time is past or future, it is an illusion.   Yesterday is gone, you have only a memory of it. Tomorrow is not.  Past and future have no reality of their own. Their reality is borrowed from the present moment, from the now.  The future is an imagined now. When you think of the past or future, you do it now.

When we speak of ‘time’,  if it means this one point of time, this present moment, this ‘now’,     it makes sense. ‘Now’ is all that there is. All you are given in life is now. Life is now. There is never a time when life is not now. The past and future are an illusion with no reality of their own.  Don’t be fooled by the memories of the past or the promise of a future.          

The art of living is to make peace with this present moment. That is all we are given in life – this present moment. He who finds happiness in the ‘now’ finds blessing, finds favour, finds heaven.

The Lenten season starts with the word ‘now’. On Ash Wednesday the first reading from Prophet Joel starts as follows, “ Now, now- it is the Lord who speaks.” The Lord speaks now.  The second reading from St Paul concludes, “Now is the favourable time.” Jesus in the Gospel speaks of  alms giving, prayer and fasting. The time for it is now. The place for it is where you are. The reason  why you do it is for heavenly reward. The person for whom you do it is the heavenly Father.

Make your ‘now’ a favourable time. Make friends with 'now' and you will find heaven, you will have your reward, and you will meet the heavenly Father. Make all your moments like this moment. Then you will have found your eternity. Between now and eternity there is no time. Between now and heaven there is no time. Now is eternity. Now is heaven.  Live Now. Live heaven. Live eternity.

-        Fr T.V. George sdb