How to Touch Eternity Through Liturgical Time

The Forgotten Art of Christian Meditation: A Brief Introduction

Pieter Neefs the Elder (1609–1656), a candlelit procession inside a Gothic cathedral at night (source)

Chaotic Time(s)

In these times marked by an increasingly relentless haste, we often lament the lack of time. If the use of phones during Holy liturgies is somewhat disciplined through warnings stuck on the doors of churches, on the other hand, clocks are omnipresent. Over the years, I have found that these tiny objects, useful when it comes to keeping to a schedule, are quite disturbing during prayer. Specifically, what I have discovered is that when I pray, I tend to glance at my wristwatch more often than usual. Thus, I have become convinced that, indeed, checking the time is, among many others, one of the most common distractions. It is also a reminder that we live submerged not only in the mire of matter, as Saint Maximus the Confessor says in his extraordinary commentary on the story of the prophet Jonah, but also in time. These are, therefore, the two “tyrants” that keep us tied to earthly things, hindering our ascent to heavenly ones: matter and time.

“Remember that time is money,” Benjamin Franklin asserted in a sentence that has become the motto of the industrial world. Everything seems caught up in an increasingly dizzying rhythm, as if history and time were being sucked into a bottomless pit. Thus, we often forget that life has a purpose, an end, a conclusion, becoming prisoners of temporality, whose flow makes us forget eternity. Just as in any other situation concerning the foundations of our existence, the Revelation fulfilled by Jesus Christ and His Church, “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic,” has also brought about, regarding the relationship with time, a truly unexpected solution: living eternity in history. Before seeing how this is done, however, let us reflect a little on time.

From Plato to Saint Augustine: Time as an Icon of Eternity

The first classical author who left us his profound thoughts was the Athenian Plato, in one of his most substantial dialogues, Timaeus. Here, significantly, he asserts that time is an “image (i.e., “icon”) of eternity” (37d). Just as the created world transposes, at our level as creatures, the eternal model of everything that exists in the mind of God (referred to by Plato as the “Demiurge” = “the Supreme Craftsman of all that is”), similarly, time is the reflection here, in the world of becoming and movement, of the eternity of its own unseen world of spirit. Plato’s remarkable formulation was further developed by some of the most important Holy Fathers of the Church, among whom Saint Augustine stands out.

Before considering his teachings on time, we must never forget his wise warning from the Confessions (Book IX):

What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not.

The doubts expressed by one of the brightest speculative minds of the era of the Holy Fathers help us understand how difficult it is to understand time. Despite the risks, Saint Augustine does not give up seeking, again and again, the most comprehensive explanations. In his last major work, De Civitate Dei, he makes some surprising statements about time. First, he explains the distinction between eternity and time:

Eternity and time are rightly distinguished by the fact that time does not exist without some movement and change, whereas in eternity there is no change” (Book XI, Chapter 6).¹

Like in the speculations of Plato, in Saint Augustine, time is necessarily linked to movement, to becoming, to the evanescence of this passing life, while eternity is linked to stability, to the lack of change, to the immutability of God and the heavenly world. Regarding the perspective on time, it is absolutely necessary to reflect on the distinction and difference between God’s thinking and human thinking emphasized by the African Doctor:

He views things in quite another fashion than we do, and in a way far and greatly different from our manner of thought. For His thought does not change as it passes from one thing to another, but beholds all things with absolute immutability. Of those things which occur temporally, the future, indeed, is not yet, the present is now, and the past is no longer; but all of these are comprehended by Him in His stable and eternal presence. Neither does He see in one way with the eye and in another with the mind, for He does not consist of mind and body. Nor does what He knows now differ from what He always has known and always will know; for those three kinds of time which we call past, present and future, though they affect our knowledge, do not change that of Him ‘with whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration’ (James 1:17).²

As I haven’t aimed for a study on Augustine’s philosophy of time here, I’ll describe the essentials starting from the above quote. For God, there is no time but only an “eternal present.” This is due to the perfection of the divine intellect, which simultaneously thinks absolutely everything that exists. Think about how difficult it is for us to recapitulate just what we thought in the last day, or just in the last hour. It’s probably impossible for us to remember everything. Obviously, an intellect capable of simultaneously thinking everything—every human thought, every action, every creature, etc.—is something that far exceeds our understanding.

As for us, our minds “jump”—like monkeys, as Eastern parables tell us—from one thing to another incessantly. This is why when we want to concentrate, to meditate, to learn something, we discover how difficult it is. The effort we have to make is incredibly exhausting. It’s precisely this unrest of our minds that creates what we can call “the illusion of temporality.” In fact, there is only the present. But our memory, along with the aspirations and intentions of daily life, makes us live fragmented between what was, what is, and what will be.

Seeking Contemplation³

If we don’t learn to control our worries, emotions, thoughts, intentions, etc., we will never be able to dedicate ourselves with the maximum concentration necessary to prayer and meditation—in short, contemplation. Here I must emphasize that the essential premise of such a commitment is a moral life, in accordance with God’s commandments. Whoever does not live by God’s Law never truly has access to Christian meditation and, ultimately, to contemplation.

When we begin to change our lives by drawing near to God and holy things (especially those related to the Traditional liturgical universe of the Church), our minds begin to calm down and elevate. If this is supported by our love for God and His celestial “things above” as revealed in the Holy Scripture, we can truly experience moments of tasting eternity. Sometimes, in the semi-darkness of an old church after sunset, or in the quietness before the dawn, we feel as if time has stopped. We would wish, then, that that moment never ends. Such experiences, though incomparably more modest than the ecstasies of the saints, are possible. The sacred time of the Church, i.e., liturgical time, is meant to bring us closer to God by making us perceive, sometimes, however faintly, the grandeur of eternity.

The Meaning of the Church Calendar's Repetitiveness

If we begin by reflecting, as simply as possible, on the church calendar, we will notice some features that hide an unexpected conception of the world and time. One thing that draws our attention is the repetitiveness of certain liturgical moments: the liturgical week repeats itself over and over again, starting with the holy day of Sunday and ending with Saturday. The liturgical year also repeats endlessly. We have annually the same calendar cycles, the same feasts, the same commemorations of the Church’s saints. In fact, even the day, the smallest liturgical unit, has a recurring structure: the seven hours of Lauds are repeated over and over again every day.

What significance does this repetitiveness we encounter during the time of the Church have?

By incarnating in the history and time of fallen humans, God the Son, Jesus Christ, has extraordinarily introduced eternity into history. By dying and then rising again, He opened the gates of Jerusalem for us, but at the same time, He also reopened the gates of the fallen world (and time) to eternity. The repetitiveness of the liturgical moments is meant to indicate precisely this unexpected presence of eternity into history: in the world of “fallen,” linear time, only cyclicity (i.e., repetitiveness) can symbolize eternity, i.e., the immutability of that nunc stans about which St. Augustine speaks, referring to God and the heavenly Jerusalem.

Penetrating into the heart of the symbolism of liturgical moments, we will understand that eternity has truly been made present in time by the Person of our Lord, Jesus Christ, in whom His divine (eternal) nature and His human nature, meet. The place where time meets eternity is the sacred, liturgical space of the Church.

To explain and systematize this formula as clearly as possible, we must imagine a map of humanity’s journey. Everything began in divine eternity: the Heavenly Father, together with the Son and the Holy Spirit, fashioned the cosmos and gave life to man. This is the “zero” moment of human history. Before the Fall, all of creation and man, although they did not have access to the same kind of absolute eternity as God, existed within a plane of unending temporality that reflected the stability and immutability of divine eternity. That was truly the time of the world and of man, who—like a spotless mirror—reflected divine eternity.

The second moment, disastrous, is that of the fall: by consuming the forbidden fruit, the first parents lose the immortality that had been given to them, and death, transience, and evanescence enter the world. Thus, humanity “fell” from Paradise, simultaneously falling from that time, which was a perfect icon of eternity, into a time of corruption and destruction. Just think about the inevitable degradation of our bodies over the years, and you will see that, as ancient and medieval thinkers say, the same thing happens to the world: it is aging—and one day, it will “die.”

Then, at a moment determined by God, an epochal event takes place: eternity re-enters history through the descent among humans of the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. From this moment, the “heaven” is reunited with the “earth,” and history is no longer just the place of the curse, but also the realm of blessing that God has given, gives, and will give to all who believe in Him and strive to fulfill His commandments into His Church.

To mark in a holy way this third, restorative moment of the history of humankind, our Holy Church celebrates all the crucial events of Sacred History: the Birth of the Lord—Christmas; the Resurrection of the Lord—Easter; the Ascension of the Lord and Pentecost, plus all the other feasts. These events are celebrated over and over again, every year. Their repetitiveness already indicates the presence of eternity among us. Just as numerous prayers that we repeat over and over again in a liturgical context, the sacred time of the Church offers us the possibility of stepping out, even for a short time, from the flow of profane time in which we are literally “bombarded” by all sorts of worries, thoughts, and temptations. I believe that, especially in adoration before the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, we can meditate on stepping out of the degrading time of this transient world and encountering the One who is beyond time.

1. All quotations are from R.W. Dyson’s excellent translation: The City of God against the Pagans, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

2. Op.cit., p. 475.

3. I specify that I am not speaking about contemplation in its highest, mystical sense. That is the fruit of divine grace and cannot be attained through human effort. Likewise, the “beatific vision” of the saints in heaven is accessible only beyond this life, in the Kingdom of Heaven.