Each day: a new beginning

As we receive the gift of a new year we also receive the gift of time, without which no other gift can be possible. The Desert Fathers use to be fascinated by the mere fact that each day can be a new beginning; each day is the first day of our remaining life. They saw every single day as a parable of life; from the rising of the morning sun to its setting, a microcosm of what life is all about from the beginning till the end, from birth till death.

When not reflected upon, life is not worth living- Fr Martin Cilia

What is said of every day can easily be applied to each new year. If you come to the end of the year and are still alive, then you haven’t had a bad year. Each year offers new possibilities, and the only valid answer to this gift is gratitude, and wisdom not to lose what is freely given to us.

There are different ways in which we can live the gift of time. For the alienated, time is there to waste. It is so sad to see elderly people waste their valuable time.

It is shocking to see how so many live without taking the space and time for reflection. So many youths and adults waste time playing with gadgets which are apt to create dependency and new forms of addictions.

Everything, including a life of prayer and liturgy, can become just routine. When not reflected upon, life is not worth living and leaves very little room for the type of change which can give us true happiness.

For others, time brings despair, loneliness and depression. The gift of life without love can easily turn into a nightmare. In my priesthood I meet so many who live constantly in this state: desperate to the point of becoming carriers of despair.

This virus may easily infect our society with the disease of passive aggression, anger and a deep-seated bitterness to all around us.

For many, time means money. We live in a crazy world where we do not have time for anything, where one knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing, when one can easily be addicted to work and money. People can easily become paranoid and feel guilty whenever they ask for ‘free time’.

For some, there is no time for breaks; some live without the rhythm of Sundays and holidays, and life becomes a race against time as they lose the priceless gift: the sacrament of the ‘now’, the gift of the present moment.

The Christian way offers an alternative: for the believer, time is indeed a gift, an appointment with the Divine, the soil where our stories can unfold. Every day means a new beginning as we are the fruit of our past but not slaves to it.

Life becomes the very soil where we can experience God. Christianity is not an escape from reality but finding meaning that reaches the deeper corners of experience no matter how painful it can become.

The art of life is the capacity of holding a lot of things in tension and honouring its complexity and frailty. Life is beautiful when we can live it in freedom and in friendships, as we move from being victims of circumstances and assume responsibility for our happiness by making choices that become a source of life.

It is easy to blame others for our lack of happiness but if God grants us time everything becomes full of new possibilities as we are also called to risk and offer new possibilities for others. Every day can be re-created as far as we are open to all the surprises life will give us during this new year.

Avery Dulles summarises this beautifully: “Jesus enables us to believe that human life, with all its contradictions, is the place where God is pre-eminently found. The incarnation does not provide us with a ladder by which we escape the ambiguities of life but rather it enables us to burrow deep into the heart of reality and find it shimmering with divinity.”

ciliamartin@hotmail.com

Fr Cilia is a member of the Missionary Society of St Paul.