I have a theory about how we experience time. My idea is that the experience of time is relative. When you are younger, a month seems like a long time because relative to your life-span, it is a greater percentage of your time. As you get older and have experienced more years, time seems to move quicker and quicker. Years begin to feel like months and so on. The danger is that we can become so busy with our lives that we fail to pay attention to the most important thing which is to become a saint.

Paying attention to our vocation of holiness is not necessarily about eliminating lots of activity in favor of more prayer time, though that may be needed from time to time. Rather, it is about learning to let the light of Christ shine in the midst of our day to day activities. It is about letting Christ’s light transfigure the moment, illuminating His will in the midst of our daily activities.

To allow Christ into the moment, we have to give him permission. This can be as simple as a short prayer or simply drawing an image from religious art to mind. When we let Christ into the moment, we develop a habit of turning to him with our cares and concerns. Having religious art around the house makes this helpful. Also placing religious imagery in places where we will take notice can be of great benefit. Such practices should be accompanied by an active effort to draw Christ into the moment.

We can do this by taking account of what we are experiencing and using our imagination to consider what Jesus might say about this. Such use of the imagination is built upon an active familiarity with the Gospels, a familiarity that is nurtured in its simplest form by attending and participating in Mass (even if it is only on Sundays). Furthermore, we can help foster this intuitive sense of who Christ is and how he responds to things by seeking to meditate regularly on scripture. This can be as short as 5 minutes a day.

I think we all agree that we can take 5 minutes a day to read the Gospel. In this way, we can come to appreciate more and more who Jesus is and how he wants to speak to us.