Redeeming the Time in a Decadent World
Summary of Headings
- St. Paul's Call to Wisdom
- Living in a Decadent Age
- The Purpose of Our Existence
- Distractions from Our True End
- Redeeming the Time Wisely
- The Role of Prayer
- Carrying Grace Beyond Mass
- Recognizing God's Presence
St. Paul's Call to Wisdom
St. Paul's words were as follows. St. Paul's words resonate so very strongly today. Because he says, See how you walk circumspectly, cautiously, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. I think we can all agree that in the history of the world, there has never been such a decadent or evil time. There has never been a time that is more hell -bent on losing itself, pulling itself away from God. Pius XII famously stated that, We could even say that the state of the world is worse now than it was at the time immediately before the flood, where God saw fit, God saw it necessary to wipe out all humanity except Noah and his family.
Living in a Decadent Age
That's how bad it was back in the 1940s. Now we can see how much worse it's gotten. And while we can spend a lot of time talking about just how awful everything is, that's easy to do. We have to look at what does it mean for us. We can complain about the fact that we were born into this age, we were born into this era, where things are this corrupt and this complicated, spiritually speaking. But the fact of the matter is, we must see beyond that. We cannot just simply stay focused on the fact that it is difficult. But we must also understand that God put us here, specifically at this time, so that we may work out our salvation in this context.
Not in a different context. Not in a time or place we might have been a little more comfortable, a little more at ease, or it would have been easier to practice our faith, or to be moral people, or to save our souls. But He gave us this life here and now, in this world, in these circumstances. And this is the place we must work out our salvation. But how do we do that? That's not that easy. But St. Paul's very first word about that is redeeming the time. Redeeming the time. Understand that the time we have on earth is it. We have this time to prepare for heaven.
The Purpose of Our Existence
This time to gain heaven. This time, and no other, to actually save our souls. We do not have the possibility of a repeat or a restart or anything else. This is the one life that we have, and it is supposed to be geared entirely for our salvation. Why did God make you? God made me to know Him, love Him, and serve Him on this earth, so that we can be eternally happy with Him in heaven. One of the very first questions in the Catechism that every child should have memorized by the time that they're six. Everyone should have that memorized. And it should be drilled into our minds.
It should be the core of the very essence of the Catechism. The essence of our life. This is why I am here. This is why I exist. This is why God put me here. To know Him, love Him, and serve Him. Everything else is secondary or instrumental. Our job is to know Him, love Him, and serve Him. Our family is to know Him, love Him, and serve Him. Our finances are to know Him, love Him, and serve Him. Every part of our being, every second of our day, every instant of our existence, here on this earth, is to that end. That is the essence of our calling, of our vocation.
Too often, though, we distract ourselves with things that are not that end. We let instruments become ends unto themselves. The things that are supposed to help us to know, and love, and serve God, are instead used as if they were their own ends. And we actually use them to some degree to erase God from our minds. To erase us. To erase Him. Excuse me. To erase Him from our attention. One of the reasons the world loves noise and chaos is precisely so that we cannot think about God. We aren't as conscious of the presence of God. One of the reasons why the world is so hyperactive all the time, despite the fact that we have unprecedented comfort and convention, we are still always running too fast, trying too hard to get too much done, focused on too many things all at once.
Why is that? That's so that we can make those things ends unto themselves and forget about the proper end of why we are actually here. So that, in effect, we can waste our time. The goal of the world is to get us so lost in all this other stuff that we waste time. Redeeming the time. That is how wise people act, according to St. Paul. Now, how do we start redeeming the time? Well, the first step, of course, is eliminating the things that waste our time. So there are necessary activities that we have in our day. These are the things that are our duty of state.
These are our proper duty of state. These are essential things. And these are things we are supposed to be using for the service of God. Those things we absolutely need to keep, and we need to change how we use them. But there are a lot of other unnecessary things. Secondary things. That take up a lot of our time and attention.
Distractions from Our True End
First and foremost, extracurricular activities and, I would say, entertainment. How we use those little gaps of time between activities. What do we do with those little spaces of time? Do we say a prayer? Do we get some reading done? Maybe work on a hobby? Something productive and that helps our state of being. Or do we get on our phones and scroll? Do we log on to a video game? What do we do with our time? Do we just sit there and stare at the wall? Not thinking about anything? Those little moments are very precious. And should be used productively and intelligently.
Not as a waste. Another area that we need to work on, most definitely, is that of entertainment. So, we have a certain amount of work that we must be done. But then it is also very important for us to have free time to be able to relax, to recover, to regenerate, so that we may be able to offer more of ourselves to God the next day. That time, that free time, that time of so -called idleness or leisure, is very important. So how do we use it? Do we just turn on the football game? Again, get on our phones, play games?
Redeeming the Time Wisely
Play video games on TV? Go out and play sports? What is it that we do? Sit down for a movie night? Read a book? Etc. Think about it for a minute. How much time do we spend doing what? In our off time? Then think about what is a productive use of our time and what is not a productive use of our time. As an example, watching a movie is not a bad thing in and of itself. Movies are getting sketchier. I would recommend very strongly looking for alternative sources of entertainment. But at the same time, in and of itself, it may not be sinful. But! Is it a productive use of time?
The answer there is almost always no. Why? Because it is passive entertainment. Your brain does not need to work to be able to watch a movie. As a result, your imagination becomes stifled. Your intelligence does not work and atrophies. There is no production there. There is only relaxation and passivity. And that is never the way to grow in virtue. So while it may not be directly a sin, it can be the gateway to a lot of sin. It can be the beginning towards a lot of vice. Unintentionally, undesiredly, but it can be. What is the purpose of sin? It is just one of the examples of many things.
I am going to be picking a lot on electronics today, just so everyone is aware. Then we have to consider about the second part of this, what we spend our time on. Think about prayer. So first of all, we looked at what we do that is not necessary. And how we should improve that. Or what we should eliminate that is not necessary. Now we need to talk about the most necessary things. That is prayer. Above and beyond all the other activities that we do. How do we pray? Ronald Knox gives an explanation when he was giving a retreat to priests about how to pray their bravery.
And he demonstrates that a priest unfortunately is often times so busy that when he prays his bravery, it is usually just kind of slamming it in between two activities. So he is never actually really praying his bravery. He is just taking a deep breath from one activity to get into the other. That is all it is. And when that happens, you don't pray well or you don't pray at all. It is just a recitation of words. Now if it applies to priests in that regard, it also applies to all of us. All of you. It applies to every person who is supposed to be praying properly.
When we say a prayer, it is important that we pray it. That we reach out for contemplation. That we try to calm our mind. That we try to focus. That we try to put ourselves in the presence of God. That is what is most necessary in our prayer. That effort to put ourselves in the presence of God. Do we take the time to do that? Say we are going to do our family rosary. Okay. Time for the family rosary. Everybody is just kind of running around. Trying to herd all the kids into one area. Trying to get them all to grab their rosary and settle down. And then you just have to start.
Is there any one minute of just silence? Trying to get everyone to practice silence so that the rosary is more fruitful. So that they are in the proper spirit of recollection before the rosary. This is exactly what the function of the rosary is before the Mass. When we say the Mass, obviously all of our attention should be on the Mass. But we are coming in from the outside world. We have just mingled with our friends and greeted everybody and everything else. So our mind is still racing on very worldly things. We need a buffer for us to be able to put ourselves in the presence of God.
In the proper mindset so that we may be able to pray. And then once we finish prayer. Once we finish the family rosary. Once we finish Mass. What is the first thing that we do? For at Mass we go dashing off so we can be the first one for coffee and donuts? Are we trying to escape just to see the world? To see what the score is in the football game? Are the kids just scattering to get to better things to do other than the rosary? We should take a minute to also transition out of prayer into the regular life. Because the prayer that we say, the Mass that we attend.
These things are supposed to be the influence and the soul of everything that we do in our lives. When we go out into the world. When we go out after Mass. We are supposed to be carrying all the grace that we received from the Mass. And it's supposed to exude out of us and pour into everybody else. How could that happen if our attendance of Mass is just to the limitation of Mass. And then we scramble out of here. We don't actually sit and think about the marvels that we have just witnessed. The miracle that we have just attended. So our prayer is to be the first one.
Our prayer needs to be buffered by a little bit of before and after contemplation. And I'm not talking about 10 minutes. But just a little bit. Appreciate what it is that we are going to do. And the importance and severity of what it is that we are going to do. And what we just did. So that we are able to take full advantage of that prayer. And it may really transform our lives. So therefore we make prayer the centerpiece of our life. And not just the thing we kind of slur. Slot in between other activities. But rather the prayer becomes the influence and the soul of the activities that we do.
When we go to the office. We should always pray before we start work. One more reason to get there just a little early. That all of our labors before. Be so that we can know, love and serve God. When we go to school. The same thing. When we change from one activity to another. The same thing. A little prayer. Because those are the two points that we need to work on most. How we deal with secondary less important activities. Getting rid of the things that don't help us. And trying to perfect the things that can help us. And to make them more about God. And the other thing is prayer.
Making prayer the essence and core of everything that we do in our lives. This is how we do it. This is how we redeem the time. And this is also how we survive in this world that desperately wants to destroy our soul. Because if we do not have a strong spiritual life. If we do not have a life that is free from waste of time. Then we are going to be losing our soul. Try to understand a lot of the extra activities that we do are not in and of themselves sins. But do they actually help and nurture our soul? One of the biggest ones is video games. I get a lot of mothers looking over at their kids while I say this.
But video games are a tremendous waste of time. They are very destructive and very dangerous in many ways. Not sinful. Not in and of themselves.
The Role of Prayer
But they take so much time and energy and focus and imagination and intelligence away from things. That could actually be used to produce strong, healthy, capable, emotionally stable people. It removes entirely so much of the being that is supposed to be dedicated to our discipline and formation. Movies, entertainment, social media, etc. None of these things feed our soul. And while they may not do direct damage to our soul. They certainly can. But while they do not necessarily do so. The cleanest possible sense. They don't actually feed our soul. And our souls will suffer from that malnutrition just as surely as our bodies will.
We must feed our souls with good and productive things. Things that inspire thoughts of God. Things that encourage the desire to serve God. Things that help us see God. One of the ways we make this judgment is to practice the presence of God. There are many ways to do that. But one of the most important things we can do is just remind ourselves again and again that God is truly present with us. We can marvel at the extraordinary gift that he gives us by choosing to dwell within our souls. He chooses us. He delights to make his habitation, his dwelling, a mother's home.
Among men. He makes us his temple. And he lives within us. By choice. Because he loves us that much. He sacrifices himself on the altar so we have that chance. He gives us confession and communion so we can live it more fully. But this also means that we must be willing to live our faith. Because the faith that he gives us is not just simply something to have. What would be the point of inviting somebody into your home and then putting them in the guest room and then bricking up the guest room so they can't get out? That's what we're doing to God when we don't actually let him expand and let his influence reach out to every part of our being.
To act through us as he is supposed to. Instead we walk through him. We call him off. Corner him away from ourselves. So we don't have to listen to him. Don't have to pay attention to him. Just kind of let him be there. You think for a second he's going to stay? You think for a second that we are not going to kill his influence and his life there with mortal sin? Of course we will. Maybe not right away. But we will. Because that is the slippery slope that the devil wants to lead us down. He wants us in mortal sin. And he will fight. And he will patiently wait 30 years to make it happen.
And just doing so by creation of bad habits and waste of time. But on the flip side, our Lord Jesus Christ gives us all the power and all the grace that is necessary to truly live our faith so we will be able to know him, love him, and serve him in our everyday life. We must recognize his presence. We must see his presence all around us constantly. We must remind ourselves of him. We must remind ourselves of that presence. First thing out of the gate, we must make sure we say the morning offering so that we try to habitually have that presence before us.
But then we have to remind ourselves of that offering. Of the fact that he lives there. Of the fact that he is working through us. Of the fact that our faith is the most important thing in our lives. The more that we remind ourselves of that, the more that everything in our life transforms into something greater and holier. All of a sudden we find meaning in work, not just the paycheck. All of a sudden we find meaning in our family, not just the affection and the labor that goes into it. We find meaning in everything because all of a sudden it is alive with God himself.
That is the purpose of our life, to find God and serve God in all these things. In everything. Because he has put us here in this situation. And he has given us these responsibilities so that we may know him, love him, and serve him. By seeing him and believing in him each and every day. This practice of the presence of God is more and more essential the more that the world, the flesh, and the devil try to reject him and closet him away. And ignore him and deny him and everything else. It is all the more necessary that we live truly in the presence of God.
Father William Doyle famously would say, I will do up to 10 ,000 ejaculatory prayers a day to be able to know the presence of God.
Carrying Grace Beyond Mass
To be able to really believe in the presence of God and carry it with him every moment of every day. Of course he slept only an hour a day so he could do that. We don't have quite that gift. But we can at the very least try something like that. Something to remind ourselves frequently throughout the day. As frequently as possible of the presence of God. A little prayer here. A little prayer there. A little pause there. The image in front of our screen. Something. If we're stuck in the office, we should have a little image of the crucifix or something above the screen.
So every time we look up, we see it and we're reminded of that presence. That he is truly there. And that he can sanctify this labor that we are doing. And we can truly serve him and love him in that action. This is how we reconquer our soul. This is how we use our time wisely. This is how we sanctify our time. And this is how we sanctify the world. And this is how we know God, love God, and serve God in this world. And this is how we are eternally happy with him in heaven. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Recognizing God's Presence
Amen.
Summary
St. Paul's exhortation to 'redeem the time' is especially relevant in today's world, which is marked by spiritual challenges and distractions. The homily emphasizes the necessity of focusing our lives on knowing, loving, and serving God, as outlined in the Catechism. The sermon addresses the distractions of modern life, such as entertainment and unnecessary activities, and how they can detract from our spiritual growth. It calls for a reevaluation of how we use our time, urging us to prioritize prayer and contemplation. Finally, the homily encourages the faithful to practice the presence of God in daily life, reminding us that our ultimate purpose is to serve God and attain eternal happiness with Him in heaven.