Where do you live?
I mean, are you living ‘in the present’?
Or, do you live rather elsewhere?
Where do Christians live?
Some would argue that Christians are men and women tied with the past. After all, at every Mass we hear the words “in memory of me”. The Church seems based on ‘Tradition’ and on ‘traditions’.
Others would argue that Christians are men and women of the future. After all, every day we repeat the words “Thy Kingdom come…”. The Church seems to be the eschatological presence of the Kingdom of heaven here on earth.
Turned to the future, bound to the past… we remain afraid of the future and well aware of the precarity of all we hold unto.
So, where to live then, as Christians?
In the PRESENT. Yes!
The ‘present’ is not a closed space where everything has to fit or a given time when we must do all we can to make a difference. No. The ‘present’ is our ‘here and now’, our historical time. To be present to the present (the old saying “Age quod agis!”) is to know that our present has a depth and a meaning, that it is a reality we need to grasp, embrace and interpret as a sign.
Yes, Christians are those who live fully their present because it is in the present that we touch the needs of men and women, it is in history that we can see the ‘signs’ of what God is doing, it is ‘here and now’ that we need to find an answer to the will of God for us. It is to the present that we must pay much attention and perceive the movements of the Spirit.
Let us not get distracted by past and future, but be present!
Fr Ivano
