Time

  Time

Deacon Lex Ferrauiola

No one knows how and when the world will end. What we do know is that time, our own unique individual time, will come to an end some day. The end of the world will happen for each of us the moment we cross the threshold from life into death. And when our end time does come, we will be asked to account for what we did with the precious time we were given.

I believe that when we die each one of us will sit alone with God in a little room and watch the video of our life. And in that video we will see where we loved and where we failed to love. And sitting there next to God, the source of all goodness and love, we will judge ourselves on how much we loved – really loved; how much we forgave – really forgave; how much we helped others to find goodness and healing and wholeness in their own individual lives, their own unique circumstances.

None of us knows how much time we have left. As we open our eyes each morning, God gives us 1,440 brand new minutes to use. We can use them with love to heal our world and cherish our relationships or we can waste them with bitterness and anger.

The great thing about the present, is that we still do have time – time to love, time to forgive, time to come outside of ourselves and be present to others. We have this gift of time to fix whatever is still broken in our lives; to heal any damaged relationships; to make ourselves whole.

We don’t know when the end of the world will come but we do know that it will come for each of us. And when that day does come, all that will remain for eternity is the love we gave while we still had time.

With love,

Deacon Lex

Lex Ferrauiola is a husband, father, grandfather and a Catholic deacon serving as a pastoral minister and hospital chaplain within the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey. His newest book, All Shall Be Well: Finding God Among the Pots and the Pans is available now.