Every day, Ever hour

Humanity has been caught in the trap of the past and future. Being a student of history I tend to be caught up with the past as well. The past is fascinating because our nature tells us that we must learn from past events in order to repeat them or not to repeat them. However, what we seem to forget that every human is unique in their own special way. No two humans have the same finger prints and this applies to our personality. Instead of living in the past or looking forward to what will happen we must learn to live in the present moment.

When we speak to each other and tell of future events or dates many will say "God's will be done". I believe sometimes we take this statement for granted and forget the value that it holds. If we cannot trust that God's will be done then why even utter such a statement? Stress is a factor that is build upon the anticipation of something that will happen or things that happened in the past. But why stress over things that have occurred or things that have not occurred and are out of our control? This is a big dilemma because post modern society always has us thinking of either the past or the future never wanting to focus life on the present. (Dates for exams, final papers being due at the end of the term or "How was the wedding last week?" which then turns into gossip). When our minds are consistently geared towards thinking of the past and the future we then tend to forget about the present which turns into neglect for God and laziness in our pursuit of living out our theology with Christ. Sin the end result of this type of thinking.

However, we must be reminded of the Eucharistic community we are a part of. The Eucharist is the focus of the present time. The church, representing the unity of Christ in the one body stands outside of time. The church as the body and Christ as the head of the church stands outside of time. This is why many of the early church fathers made reference to the church being outside of time because it is not of this world. The church should remind us of the present time. What is most important to us is living out the body of Christ in the present time that we are aware of. Future and past is out of control because we are limited in the scope of physical time. But in order to be focused on the present we must be focused on something that stands outside of time; the church. The Eucharist reminds us of the death we must all go through in order for one to live a life in the unity of Christ and his church. To stop and to realize the present moment is a true gift because it is only then one can be thankful for the things taken for granted. Once one starts living in the present does ones appreciation for everything that is in the world begin to grow in their hearts seeing in through the eyes of Christ and the Eucharist.
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"Our continual mistake is that we do not concentrate upon the present day, the actual hour, of our life: we live in the past or in the future, we are continually expecting the coming of some special moment when our life will unfold itself in its full significance. And we so not notice that life is flowing life water through our fingers, sifting like precious grain from a loosely fastened bag.

Constantly, each day, each hour, God is sending us people, circumstances, tasks, which should mark the beginning of our renewal, yet we pay them no attention, and thus continually we resist god's will for us. Indeed, how can God help us? Only be sending us in our daily life certain people, and certain coincidences of circumstance. If we accepted every hour of our life as the hour of God's will for us, as the decisive, most important, unique hour of our life--what sources of joy, love, strength, as yet hidden from us, would spring from the depths of our soul!"

Fr. Alexander Elchaninov, Diary of a Russian Priest