Reflection - Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/122116.cfm
SG 2:8-14
LK 1:39-45

Did you ever wonder why there are twenty-four hours in a day? Although this wasn't the starting point for my reflection on today's texts --- I'll get to that in a minute --- it was one of the collateral thoughts that emerged, so I had to pursue a solution.

This may be overly simplified, but it appears that there are twenty-four hours in the day because the ancient Egyptians used sundials that "divided a sunlit day into 10 equal parts plus two 'twilight hours,' one in in the morning and one in the evening." Eventually, the other "half" of the day, the part called night, was also assigned twelve parts of its own.

The Time Traveler in H.G. Wells novel, The Time Machine, explained to his friends that: 'any real body must have extension in four directions: it must have Length, Breadth, Thickness, and—Duration." Seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, centuries, millennia. We divide and sub-divide this dimension we call time and assign names to each sub-divided part.. 

The philosophers tell us that Time is the measure of matter in motion. The earth goes around the sun. The moon goes through its cycles. The annual growth rings within the tree develop and become defined. The sand slips through the hourglass. The verge escapement blesses us with its 'tick tock.' The crystal vibrates at precise and regular intervals. Light travels a precise distance. In all these ways, and countless others, we measure matter in motion and we call it time.

From this peculiar aspect of our existence we explain a multitude of happenings, and imagine a host of images. The White Rabbit, at the beginning of Alice in Wonderland, runs around, singing in his distraught fashion: "I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date! No time to say hello, goodbye! I'm late! I'm late! I'm late!"

     We admonish: Why put off til tomorrow what you can do today?

          Or, conversely: Why do today what you can put off to tomorrow?

     We are taught that: The faster you go, the slower time goes.

         And I know from experience that: The older I grow, the faster time goes.

     If I sit around vegetating I am said to have Time on my hands.

         Though I prefer the alternative: I've got all the time in the world.

Into this finely measured existence of ours comes the One who is beyond measure. But God is neither haphazard nor capricious in his involvement. His plan was one for the "fullness of time" as Paul tells the Ephesians. And so, when that "fullness of time" had finally come, "God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons". (Galatians 4:4) At that singular moment in time, "while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was half gone, [God's] all-powerful word [the Father's only Son] leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed, and touched heaven while standing on the earth." So it says in the Wisdom of Solomon. (Wisdom of Solomon 18:14-16)

In the Book of Ecclesiastes the Lord tells those of us living in the dimension of time that "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven." (Ecclesiastes 3:1) But the Psalmist also reminds us that: "A thousand years in [God's] sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night." (Psalm 90:4)

I said at the beginning that I would come back to this morning's text and explain how the readings led me to question the origin of the hour. And, here we are.

The verse preceding today's Gospel text tells us that: The angel departed from her.

In the next few words, the ones that opened today's Gospel, we hear that:

Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechari'ah and greeted Elizabeth.

As soon as the angel left,  Mary was on her way. She didn't take time to weigh the practicality of her decision. She didn't lay plans to visit at some time in the future. She didn't make a list of things that had to be taken care of before she began her journey. God's word came and she responded. Now! 

Similarly, when Elizabeth replies to Mary after Mary greets her upon entering the house, Elizabeth says: "At the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears,

the infant in my womb leaped for joy." Again there is no delay. God's Word comes and the response, in this case from John, is immediate. It is now.

So my reflection turned to time --- months, weeks, days, hours --- and I questioned what time I took to give answer, or even acknowledgement, to the Lord's word. 

We declare: There's no time like the present. But we don't know how absolutely right we are. When Judy Garland introduces the song "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" in the movie, Meet Me in St Louis, she tells her little sister, "Christmas future is far away. Christmas past is past." The import of her message is clear: the only real, genuine, authentic Christmas time is Christmas now. As I reflect on this I am reminded of Jesus' teaching about turning and becoming like little children. The connection between the prelude to the song and Jesus' teaching lies in the fact that a two- or three-year-olds' understanding of time is mainly limited to "now and not now." It is only in later years that we learn to understand past, present and future; and still later that we gain comprehension of clocks and calendars.

Many would say that Christmas is for children. And maybe it's that child's simple sense of the "now and the not now" that we subconsciously have in mind when we make that claim. To the child there is no time, there is only the present; and it's only in the present that we can meet our savior. Maybe that's the childlike quality Jesus suggests we should embrace. So the infant Jesus and the child who knows only the now meet at a manger in the now of Christmas.