A Time of Opportunity

In Greek there are two words that we would translate as "time" in English. The first is "chronos"; the second is "kairos." The first speaks of time in terms of measuring the years, months, days, hours, and minutes of our day.  We measure time with chronometers.  However, it is the second of these words that St. Paul uses in his second Letter to the Corinthians from which we read today. The meaning of "kairos," also translated as “time,” is heavily nuanced as a time of opportunity or even a time of crisis. So when St. Paul tells us: Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2), he is telling us that we need to think of this time as an opportunity. This is exactly what Lent is! 

Paul's message is simple. This is not the time for procrastination. Procrastinate and the opportunity might be missed.  This is the time of opportunity for us to "return" to the Lord as the Prophet Joel says in the today's first reading. Now I am sure that most if not all of you have not really left the Lord, so we also have to look at the notion of “return” as a matter of renewal and enhancement rather than of starting over. We have an opportunity before us to make the relationship we have with God even deeper, even stronger than it is now. 

The Gospel today gives us a threefold charter for renewal: prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Through each of these we are called to draw closer to the Lord. In prayer, we pray or communicate with our God. In fasting, we remind ourselves that God is enough for us. In almsgiving, we share our gifts with those less fortunate to remind ourselves of how much God has done for us and to ease the pain and suffering of the poor. 

Lent, which comes from the German word "Lenz," means springtime. Most of the people of the world are drawing to the close of their summer, so again we cannot take this literally.  Springtime is a time of renewal and coming to life in nature.  While we who live in the northern hemisphere will watch our environment "green up" during spring, the vast number of Catholics will not have nature to remind them of the need to spiritually renew ourselves.  May our Lenten devotion lead us to a springtime of the soul, a new life with God.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administration