Fr. Penna’s Homily for January 1
“When fullness of time had come”
There are certain moments in our life when we stop and think about time. Sitting at the bedside of my mother and reminiscing has made me very conscious of time, the time that has passed that at the same time seems so short. The annual marking of birthdays greeted with great joy as children has a different flavoured when you get older. The marking of times of relationships in anniversaries gives to our life taste of deeper meaning. We pause and see the years and months that have gone by are not simply passing time but because of relationships, because of life lived with others, time has an unrecognized richness. Now, isn’t that what we must do as human beings whose life time is “threescore and ten or fourscore for those who are strong” as the psalmist tells us?
That is why it is so important that we gather at the beginning of this year and mark time as being full of grace. Because frankly you like me live in an era in which time is more about passing than it is about fullness. Don’t we talk about having pastimes? Oh, we call it relaxation, and sometimes it is, but how much time do we pass watching the screen? Have you ever noticed how quickly time passes when you’re watching television or playing a video game or surfing YouTube or Facebook or Tic-Tok? It’s the same thing with work. Maybe it’s just me but when 5 o’clock rolls around I wonder where the day has gone. Good grief, every Sunday morning I feel like I had just had Sunday yesterday. Where did the time go? What did it mean?
That is why it’s vital to have Sunday morning here with God’s Family. That is why it is vital to celebrate the New Year. That is why it is of great importance to have feast days. Because our experience of time is rather thin when we only pass time, time becomes full when it becomes a feast. Feast time, tasting time’s fullness, tasting time not as a burden but as a gift. That’s why kids love birthdays, because it is time filled with gifts. That is why I love holidays … because it is a weirdly wonderful experience to unplug and discover that my days are actually quite long and offering moments to pause over and be surprised by. Holidays bring gifts not tasks. That is what feasts are about – not just one more day of eating in order to live but living in order to eat. This is a particular Catholic thing – in our way of organizing our year there are constant moments of mandatory feasting. Indeed, Every Sunday is a mandatory feast – you must stop the busyness and distraction and savour time with thankfulness and the best of food – God become our Food. People often get annoyed with the term “Holy Day of Obligation” – because they understand Obligation in the modern sense of work that needs to be done – rather than the Christian sense of entering into feasting for which God has done the work.
“When the fullness of time had come”
I do not think that modern folks understand this at all. With our Outlook calendars and 24/7/365 days of working and shopping. We are never present to the time we are in – always looking ahead at what appointment will come. I don’t think modern life is a full life in this sense because modern time is a pastime. It is a pastime in two senses: first of all, it is the punching in the clock of productivity time. So little time so much to do. Secondly, it is the filling of our off time with distractions laid on very thick with the technology that our productivity time allows us to purchase. So, there it is. Chock-full of busyness and loaded down with distraction our hours, our days, our weeks, our years, our lives whizz by. And we are trained to be satisfied with the odd moment of drinking deeply of life of pausing and savouring it … but it is always for the sake of returning to what is really important: filling our lives with productivity until – becoming “unproductive” – we are left with a strong hint that it is about time that we should shuffle off. And then it’s time for us to… What’s the word that we use? Oh yes, it’s time for us who have lived pastime to “pass”.
I so dislike that expression – “to pass” – there is a better word: “to die”. Now that is a word that wakes me up. Nope, not “nice” but a strong word, a reality word that makes me take notice because it brings a clarity to my time, a limit, a boundary that yes – tells me that there is much to do in order to fulfil God’s plan for me and leave this world in a better state than I found it. But this word also (and this is what Mary the Mother of God) teaches me – teaches us – to reflect on the deep meaning of things in our hearts. For Mary’s children this word “die” calls us to wake up, to treasure time, to “keep all these things – people, places, projects, – reflecting them in our hearts.
And so “to die” – the ending of time –does not crush me. Rather, is it not the concept of “passing” that oppresses us with its mediocrity and passivity ultimately leading us to see time as a burden? “Let us take away this time that meaninglessly passes with the gift of MAiD”, they whisper. Dying awakens me to deep feasting – when I surrender it to God and in prayer “reflect on it in my heart”. Why? Because the heart of Mary was the first sound in which the child Jesus heard the rhythm of “Abba, Father.” And that man Jesus died and dying destroyed death so that when we rest near to His Heart we find the end of pass-time. Rather, when we rest near to His Heart we discover that time is marked by the Beating of a Sacred Heart that will never stop. Time becomes the Beating of the Heart of God. That is indeed with rejoicing over. There is no dying of the passing year, there is simply the death of years that pass. Celebrating the Motherhood of Mary at the New Year is celebrating the birthing of eternity and attending to the sound of God’s Heart filling, singing, in our hearts.
That is what it is to live in the fullness of time.
This happened to Mary. She whose heart was the sound of human love singing to the Child Jesus was to discover in His Heart, pierced on the Cross, the sound of Divine Love singing. The sword that pierced her heart was a sword that opened up her heart – her very being – to discover God singing in her pain, her joy, her work.
Mother of God, pray for us. That we may live with the Sound of God, the Sound of Your Son’s Heart, singing with the power of the Holy Spirit. Help us to treasure all things – all people, all work, all play, all suffering, all joy, all justice, all peacemaking – all the things of time – as feasts ready for us to bless us. May our Jubilee joy echo your Magnificat so that we might day in and day out in this year of your Son’s fulfilling time, 2025 we might be able to say
“My soul magnifies the Lord”.