I On Sacred Time

On Sacred Time

Do you realize that when you look up at the sun, the stars and planets, you are looking into the past? Time collapses. Past and present occur simultaneously. Stars whose light is just reaching us on earth may no longer exist. Their light, a memory in our present moment.

In a similar manner, are we not being tinged by the future which is seeded in our present and past? Time Future quietly present within us without our being aware of it.

T. S. Eliot reflects on time in the opening phrases of Burnt Norton, the first poem of his Four Quartets.

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.

Past and Present. Present in the Future. The Future embedded in the Past. A braided dance; a creative act of weaving. The Norns, the daughters of Erda, in the opening Prologue of Wagner’s opera Die Götterdämmerung [Twilight of the Gods] weave and measure, foretell and weave… Future. Past. Present.

Our contemporary sense of time is more a chaotic race rather than a dance or the creative act of weaving. Time is elusive rather than attainable. Inconsistent rather than stable. Time is deceptive. There never seems to be enough time. Having to wait causes time to slow down. Anxiety rises. Impatience grows. Anger can explode. We want to get going. Alternatively, when we are thoroughly engaged in an activity time Flees. Quickens. Melts away. We want more. But time is gone.

In our culture, time is coupled with production. Producing provides us with self-worth. You never want to waste time. It is costly. Time is money. Even our leisure time is frantic. We complain about needing a vacation from our vacations. Tick, tock, tick, tock… The seconds pulse away. Pressuring us to get there. To finish. To be ‘on time’.  We are impelled. We become exhausted. Time is a burden.

Though we exist in the Present, many of us live in the Past. Burdened by its weight, curving our spines, bowing our heads and darkening our souls. Mistakes. Betrayals. Poor choices. The road not taken. The opportunity missed. The inability to forgive ourselves. Other people live perpetually in the Future anxiety of what might happen. We are left paralyzed. Unable to make decisions. We do not act.

We chase after time, and time chases after us. Like a dog running in circles after its tail. It is an unending race with no line of finish except death. And time always wins. Eternity is thus unimaginable.

Ebenezer Scrooge was visited by three specters.

Time Past. A dwelling of Memory. Warmth. Playfulness. Disappointment. Selfishness.

Time Present. A blank canvas filled with possibilities.

Time Future. A land of Shadows. Premonitions. Challenges. Death.

Ebenezer walks amidst interlacing time like Matisse’s Dance I. A ring dance of past, future and present. The dance changed Ebenezer. The dance offered hope. The Christian understanding of time is permeated with hope. The Sacred Liturgy is where time dances in all its splendour. Past, Future and Present converging to crack open life’s meaning for those who enter Sacred Time.

To enter the Sacred Liturgy is to enter the commingling of Sacred Present, Sacred Future and Sacred Past. Living in the present moment we enter the Paschal [Passover] Mystery. The Suffering. The Lifting. The Dying. The Descending. The Rising. The Ascent. The Overshadowing. The Breathing Out. The Returning. All active verbs. The continuous activities of the Father, Son and Spirit in a dance amidst Time Past, Time Present and Time Future. This merging of three-fold time within the three-fold God is apparent in varying ways throughout the Sacred Liturgy.

The phrase, “In illo tempore…” – “At that time…” which previously began every Gospel proclamation was a key to unlock Sacred Time. “In illo tempore…” acted in the same way that Once upon a time… or In a galaxy far, far away… continues to do. No one questions when we hear these phrases that we are transported to other worlds beyond the present or to parallel universes. Time is broken and we are rocketed at the speed of light to new galaxies, step through looking glasses or fall down a rabbit holes. And we never question the reality of these experiences.

“In illo tempore…” is the pass key through which Time Past and Time Present converge. Past biblical events happen in our midst.

“In illo tempore…” We are at the well. The woman from Samaria is before us conversing with Jesus.

We are in ear’s shot. Listening. Watching.

“In illo tempore…” We are at the grave of Lazarus. We hear the frustrated questions. See the sobbing tears of Martha and Mary stream down their faces. Before us the bound Lazarus struggles to walk out of the bonds of death. He needs help!

“In illo tempore…” We are present as a woman is thrown to the ground in front of us. Accusations. Stones readied in hand. Jesus. Silent. His finger, moving on the ground. Writing? Drawing? What is he doing?  Alone. Jesus gently speaks. He helps the woman to stand aright and sends her home.

We are not only confronted by the Gospel but are present within it. We are not only remembering the past. The past is made present and we are participating in it.

Would that we might reinstate the incipit, “In illo tempore…” – “At that time…”

When the prophet Isaiah acclaims, “See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” [Isaiah 43:19] We need to look around at our own times and into our own lives. What is happening? God is speaking to ancient Israel, but God is also speaking across the ages to us in the present. The Second Vatican Council teaches that when the scripture is proclaimed it is God speaking to his people here and now. Our God is not a God of the past but of the present. Speaking through the ages. Speaking out of eternity to our present moment.

Whenever the scripture speaks, Today! Time collapses and collides.

“If today, you hear God’s voice…” [Psalm 95:7b]

“Today a Saviour is born for you.” [Luke 2:11]

“Today, you will be with me in Paradise.” [Luke 23:43]

“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” [Luke 4:21]

Today! We are present at Massah and Meribah. Today! We are in the fields outside of Bethlehem.

Today! We are standing at the base of the cross on Calvary. Today! We are present in the Nazareth synagogue. The announcement of Today breaks open the realities of the past and make them available to our present moment to act as signposts directing us into the future.

The Easter Proclamation [Exsultet] sung at the Great Vigil of the Resurrection is an exceptional example of this Sacred Time bending.

“This is the night you led the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt through the Red Sea.”

“This is the night that a pillar of fire banished the darkness of sin.”

“This is the night that sets Christian believers apart from worldly vices...leading them to grace.”

“This is the night Christ broke the prison bars of death.”

“This is the night…as bright as day…”

“This is the night…” We are present in Egypt. The Red Sea. The realm of the dead. Within the tomb. We are present as Christ destroys death by death itself. Like “In illo tempore…” – “This is the night…” breaks open time. With the flowing together of Time Future, Time Past and Time Present we enter Eternity. We bask in the unapproachable light of our eternal God with our redemption in hand.

To remember.

To savor.

To appreciate.

A meaning-filled person.

A gracious event.

A thoughtful gesture.

A smile blooms across our face.

A tear streams down our cheek.

Unbeknownst to us.

Deep within us Memory pursues forgotten parts of ourselves.

Brought to the surface.

Released.

We become Complete.

Pain.

Fear.

Violence.

Memory’s dark underside.

A place to which some people cannot return.

Wounds too deep.

Brokenness to great.

Burden too heavy.

“Do this in memory of me.”

Jesus commands us to remember.

Anamnesis.

Greek.

To go beyond remembering.

And by remembering.

To make present.

On the night before he was to suffer…

That gathering and this gathering are one act.

There is only one Eucharist.

There is only one Sacrifice.

Transcending time and space.

We are not observers but living participants in the Paschal [Passover] Mystery.

Jesus is broken. We are broken.

Jesus is poured out. We are poured out.

For others.

We die.

We rise.

With Christ.

“Do this in memory of me.”

Past and Present are merged into one act offered to the Father, by the Son, through the Spirit.

Sacred Time – Anamnesis – Remembering to make Present.

Passover. The twilight sacrifice of lambs. The markings with blood. The Seder. The departing from Egypt. The crossing dry-shod through the Red Sea. The desert journey. Arrival at Sinai’s Mount. The giving of the Torah.

To partake at a Passover Seder table is to experience the events here and now through story, sign and symbol. Every Jewish person must leave Egypt.

The Christian Passover, in which every Christian dies and rises, occurs in being plunged into and rising from the waters of Baptism. The Sacred Triduum, a single liturgy that spans three days, from sunset on Holy Thursday to sunset on Easter Sunday, is the event through which the Church births new daughters and sons. On Holy Thursday at the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, we hear the instructions for the Passover and preparations for the leave-taking of Egypt. On Good Friday, John shifts the events of the Passion and Crucifixion by one day so that the dying of Jesus, the true Lamb of God, is sacrificed at the same time the paschal lambs are being sacrificed in the Temple. John bends time to deepen meaning for those about to die in the waters of Baptism. At The Great Vigil of Easter, we return to the fullness of the Passover. The one reading that cannot be omitted. The crossing of the Red Sea is proclaimed. Across the Triduum time Shifts. Bends. Folds. Entwines. Passover, Jewish and Christian, reveal layered meanings.

Saint Athanasius bends and collapses time. He called Pascha [Passover/Easter], The Great Sunday. Have you ever noticed that the Gospels of Easter Sunday and Pentecost are the same day? Yet Pascha is 50 days in length; Pascha to Pentecost. Seven weeks of seven days plus one. Yet Fifty days becomes One day! The Great Sunday.

Another way to express Athansius’ Great Sunday is to experience the first week of Pascha as dawn of an eternal day. The second week of Pascha is sunrise in the early morning of Sunday. The third week of Pascha is mid-morning. The fourth week of Pascha is midday. Seven weeks; one day. Sacred Time is graceful and supple as it bends our stories and realities that we might be participants in God’s sacred act of redemption for his people.

The Liturgy of the Hours reflects this as the offices are the same for the first seven days of Easter, dawn. A similar experience of sacred time occurs during the Christmas Octave. 

During the fifty days of Easter, many of the Sunday and weekday Gospel passages are taken from the night of the Last Supper. While we move forward to Pentecost, we hear the farewell words of Jesus from the night of his arrest. It is the words not of the Risen Christ but the Jesus who is about to die. Past, Future, and Present converge into the one event of our Redemption.

As children of the Enlightenment, my musings and examples may seem esoteric. What has this discussion of Sacred Time to do with everyday life, you may ask. There is a presumption in such a question that mundane life is our primary experience and is the fulness of reality. But remember we are incarnate spirits. Made from the earth, we have God’s breath moving in and out of us. We are body and spirit. Tangible and mysterious. Of this world and created for eternity. As good, awe-inspiring, and beautiful as creation is, there is more to the universe than what is seen and experienced. If I may dare use astrophysics as an analogy, most of the universe is comprised of dark matter, a mysterious, unseen form of matter. How much more of life than is Spirit?  The presence of God, Father, Son and Spirit dances, sparkles and bursts throughout creation. To enter the Sacred Liturgy and the sacramental life of the Church is to enter Sacred Time and Holy Presence while in Time and Space. The embrace of both leads us into Divine Eternity.

A curious final note. There is a rubric in the Roman Missal regarding the concelebration of priests. “No one is ever to join a concelebration or to be admitted as a concelebrant once the Mass has already begun” [Roman Missal, #206]. What underlies this rubric?

I believe it addresses the experience of entering the convergence of Sacred Time, and this convergence cannot be breached. Consider the interruption of a father reading a fairy tale to his daughter. Can you really go back to that place once the Once upon a time world has been shattered? Or the experience of the Sacred Liturgy being stopped because of an emergency? A concelebrating priest is joined to all the gathered priests as one. Therefore, a priest who is late stands outside of the Sacred Time that the concelebrates have already entered. More importantly, if my intuition is correct, why does this rubric then only apply to concelebrating priests and not to all the baptized who are gathered as the Body of Christ?

Sacred Time challenges us and our culture.

It is not utilitarian. It cannot be monetized.

Sacred Time Unfolds and then Folds back unto itself.

Shifts. Lengthens. Collapses. Reveals.

Sacred Time is to be entered.

A space in which to dance. To rest. To heal. To dream and imagine…

A place in which to wonderfully be lost – playing with God.

Play.

The essence and fullness of being human and divine.

The playground?

Sacred Time.

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Very Rev’d David Wm. Mickiewicz, July 2026.

For reflection.

How do you experience time?

Do you embrace time as a companion or an adversary?

Do you perceive Time as sacred within your everyday experiences?

What is your experience of God in time?

How do you experience time during the Sacred Liturgy?