Listening to the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes, there is a lot of wisdom and much of it practical. What has been, that will be; what has been done, that will be done. Nothing is new under the sun. There is a lot for us to think about today when he says there is an appointed time for everything, and a time for everything under the heavens ... words often spoken at funerals because everyone acknowledges that there is a time to give birth and a time to die.
“It’s time! Yes. "It’s time.” Time to eat. Time to move from the living room into the dining room. I popularized the saying, “it’s time,” at my residence announcing it is six o’clock and time to pass into the dining room.
It is time for many happenings in our lives, many we welcome, and others unwelcomed. It is someone’s time when someone has passed.
Besides pain and anguish, what Godly words might help us embrace our times? It is said that God has made everything appropriate to its time. It was God who determined every single time that a time event occurs in our lives. God was and is aware of every single individual on the face of this earth. Each one of us is but one star in the galaxy of billions that fill the heavens and God knows and loves each of us in a unique way.
In the gospel today, Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say I am?’’ Try to imagine Christ asking each one of us who do we say we are. It’s time to know who we are. A time comes when we have to pass from the search of what I want from my life in Christ, to what does life want from me. Do we see the hand of God at work in our lives? It’s time to focus on who we are today and leave tomorrow to God’s providence.
In a sermon he gave to pastors, St. Augustine wrote:
It was God who brought forth the author of Divine Scripture. Feed there that you may feed in safety. Whatever you hear from that source, you should savor. Hear the voice of the Shepherd lest you wander in the midst. Gather at the mountain of Holy Scripture. There, are the things that will delight your heart. Find rest in this grazing ground and God will feed you with judgment something that God alone can do. What man is today that man scarcely knows but he knows something however imperfect, God feeds us with right judgment.
Verse 11 in Ecclesiastes we read, “God has made everything appropriate for its time and has put the timeless into human hearts, without humans ever discovering from beginning to end what the Lord has done.” Is this similar to St Augustine’s, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you”?
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