Meditation for February 17, The Brevity of Time

"It is amazing how fast times passes at Carmel," Mme. Louise de France, a sister of Louis XV, wrote from the monastery of St. Denis, Nov. 30, 1781, "the years are days and the days are moments."

If Mme. Louise de France had not experienced it herself, the inscriptions on the walls of the cloister would have reminded her of it.

"Courage my soul, time is short."

"Only eternity is long."

"Pain lasts only a moment, the reward is eternal."

One day a discouraged novice confided to Mme. Louise, then Mother Therese de Saint-Augustin, "Ah! I can't continue here any longer." And the prioress replied: "Yes, my child, always sweep­ing, always polishing, always restraining self, always mortifying self, we will persevere, you and I, until death."

What beautiful poise! What realization of the true value of things! Hold on! that expression has made a fortune. It is the key to many situations; it explains every victory, in the struggle against self as well as those in the battlefield.

Hold on. Life here below is so short. A shadow, a breath, an instant that we can scarcely grasp. St. Paul stresses it in his letter to the Corinthians, (I, vii, 29); it is the familiar refrain of Ecclesi­asticus. Mme. Louise said further, "When I am tired, I look at the cloister yard where my body will rest until the Last Judgment. This thought gives me courage and I no longer think of heat or cold."

Shall I ever meditate sufficiently on the brevity of time? I have only one life and it is short, despite the monotony of its days. Therefore I ought to rejoice, if as these days slip swiftly by, God gives me the opportunity of doing something for Him that costs.
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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)