LIVING IN THE PRESENT
[continued from yesterday]
Meanwhile the present alone is ours, and we are letting it slip through our fingers.
The past is gone, whether for evil or for good, to be stored up in better hands than ours. The future still belongs to God alone; and it is not the least of His wonderful mercies that He keeps it entirely to Himself.
It is what I am now, not what I have been or shall be; what I do now, not what I have done or shall do; that here and now matters most, to me, and to God, and to all the world besides.
Those who face that which is actually before them, unburdened by the past, undistracted by the future, these are they who live, who make the best use of their lives; these are those who have found the secret of contentment.
For such there is no day but it can be lived through, no matter what it may bring; there is no circumstance but it can be put to the best advantage, no matter how contrary and galling.
"Now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation," cried out St. Paul; and he pushed on from day to day, saying every morning with the Psalmist: "Now I have begun," until he discovered that his many beginnings had enabled him to fight the good fight and to complete his course.
To be ready for each day's duty as it comes, that will make us ready, when it comes, for the duty of the last day of all.
___________
From The School of Love and Other Essays
by The Most Reverend Alban Goodier, S.J.
Burns, Oates, & Washburn, Ltd. 1918
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