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February 6, 2018Seizing the Moment of God’s Time, “Kairos” Time
A few days ago I returned to Rochester from a retreat at a place called Loyola in Southern Maryland. Priests are given the joyous obligation to take an annual spiritual retreat, and I chose this beautiful site on the Potomac River. There are many kind of retreats a priest could take, but I was in the mood for a silent, directed retreat. Imagine eight days of prayer and reflection and rest, and you only talk once a day with your retreat director for about an hour about how all the prayer and reflection is going. No tv, no screens, no phone, just you and the good God. Whether that strikes you as enticing or not, I found it completely renewing and am very grateful for the experience.
When I called to book the retreat they told me there would be another group having a retreat the days I’d be there, but that I could have my own little hermitage, a furnished house about a mile away from the main building. The big group would be then not bother my quiet. My only interaction with the larger group was to be briefly at meals each day, and to help me stay recollected they gave me a separate dining area, even.
When I got there to check-in, I was surprised to see just how packed the retreat center was: about 80 high schoolers from a nearby Catholic high school! They were there on a special retreat called “Kairos,” 4-days away to reflect on their lives, hear their peers give talks on the Christian life, and just pray. Theirs was no silent retreat! Thank God I had my hermitage to retreat to after my meals! They were incredibly loud. But their in loudness was joy, they were talking to each other, all their smartphones were away for the retreat. Instead they were playing cards and laughing and connecting with each other.
The group had covered up all the clocks and placed signs over them that asked, “What time is it? God’s time!”. You see, this is why their retreat was called Kairos. That word in Greek means a fitting moment, a special time but not a time based on any hour of the day. Kairos is as they called it, God’s time, the moment of invitation God offers us to encounter Him and to encounter each other.
And for us, too, this day, there is a special moment. A time, not based on any hour of the day, but based on the invitation of Jesus. As He walked by the sea of Galilee and came into his public ministry, He begins to preach, “this is the time of fulfilment, the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent, and believe in the Gospel!”
Notice that the essence of Jesus’ message is about a special time. In this key time, He offers a clear and fairly simple invitation, an invitation from God to us in the NOW of our soul, in this special moment that if we wait, may pass us by forever. Jesus calls to us now, right now, even at this very moment, because He knows our lives are full of many passing things. Even life itself is fleeting. We do not know how many more days we ourselves have on this earth. But we do have a clear and wonderful invitation on this day, in this hour from Jesus Christ our Lord: to acknowledge Him in our midst, to repent, to believe His presence will lead us to true life! Will we seize the moment, this Kairos moment?
I suggest we begin to seize the moment by a concrete step in our faith. Not to focus today on everything that the first, second reading, and Gospel speaks of, not even to ponder everything we need to repent over, not to be overwhelmed by the many men and women that Jesus one day wishes to cooperate with us in bringing to healing and wholeness in the Church. Rather, embrace this invitation in this incredible moment to bring to Jesus that thing, that situation, that difficulty in which we are most in need.
And so for a moment, let’s pray together. What is it that we are really in need Jesus’ help with? Even if we can’t imagine things getting better or are reluctant to bring this subject up to God, let’s be totally honest and bring our concern to Jesus. He knows our struggles. We don’t need to pretend they’re not there or that He’s not big enough to handle them, to look at them in detail and still love us devotedly no matter what.
And when we begin to bring these deep and private concerns to Him, we may find our hearts open up, just like my hand is opening up before you. And when our hearts and our hands are open to Jesus, when we are willing to go beyond our comfort zone and let Jesus into a new aspect of our life, THERE, there is the Kingdom of God in the midst of us, all we need to do now is grasp it, grasp the hand of Jesus, allow the power of God to touch what we most need help with. And when we take Jesus’ hand in this aspect of life, we begin to trust His good work, His very stupendous ways, even if they are very different than our ways, very different than our comfortable patterns.
There is no perfect time to get fully engaged in our faith, for that time never comes. We can choose to respond to Jesus in the real moment of our lives, even this very day. If you found our little prayer helpful, why not give more things over to Jesus, let Him heal and touch other aspects of your life? If you found it a little hokey what I was doing, don’t forget the possibility. Maybe in your own time and when you feel ready, you can turn something over to Jesus, however small, and I guarantee you He will not disappoint. Today we can actually encounter the living God, experience the Kingdom of God in our midst, not in some abstract, overly complex theological argument, but by Jesus our God touching our real lives and helping us, blessing us, and calling us to something far greater than we could have ever imagined.
So why not today? Our lives today could be changed forever. We could begin to follow not some passing fad or one of our many whims, but the true and living God who calls us by name and has something marvelous for us. Today, even this very hour is a Kairos moment, a special moment from God. Yes, football playoffs are on later. Yes we may want to watch a movie or something on a streaming service before the weekend is over. But beyond a suitable time for restful leisure, what will the bulk of our day, our week ahead be like? Will we let life happen to us, let life pass us by as long as we’re reasonably fed and mildly entertained? Jesus has something much better for us. He invites us to true life, a life freed for hope, for love, for life beyond our usual self-imposed limits and past regrets! A life that overflows in heartfelt joy, our hearts welling up within us and yearning for more, to share what we have, a real experience with Jesus who’s always in our midst becomes our dearest friend, even our best and truest friend as and we invite Him into our real lives more and more, moment by moment. Our life can become a miracle unfolding before us, because God is in our midst, and we run to Him, and He leads us to others. This is great news! Jesus invitation is worth leaping up out of our seats for and running out the door to click our heels and do a victory dance!
One day, we can all be fishers of men and women, saints of God. And to get there, Jesus offers us this special moment, this Kairos moment. He extends to us His hand. How will we respond?
