Time is Short

A quote from Catherine McAuley:


Do all you can for God because time is short.

We seem to think that the future will stretch out forever. We don't want to look at our mortality and yet, Catherine brings us short. Stop! We need to be more intense in what we do. Time is short. Time is fleeting and not all that can be done for the poor is finished!

"Do all you can for God..." Time is not in our hands. Time is in God's hands. What are we doing for God? Are we doing for ourselves or for God? What is pleasing to God? This takes some time to pray, some quiet, some reflection time and time away from the busy day to really hear what God wants. And even at that, we don't always know for sure.

Thomas Merton in his famous prayer said something like this... I don't know if what I am doing is pleasing to God. I don't even know if I'm on the right path, but I believe that my desire to please God is in fact, pleasing to God.

Time is measured differently in God time and human time. A minute is nothing to God as is a year or a century... and yet a millisecond is a piece of eternity. Time is so much larger and yet so much smaller with God. So time is short. We have little time to do the things and be the person God wants and needs in the world.

We are the only you or I that will ever be. there will be no one in another age or time to replace us. Time is short to be who we are called to be.

And the poor...if we are not doing our part, however small (or large) to alleviate suffering, then we have failed. in our call to Mercy, to Christian (or Buddhist or Islamic or Jewish...) life.

Do all you can today...that is enough. Then tomorrow do all you can again...because time is short.

www.sistersofmercy.org