Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? A Meditation on the Mystery of Time

Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 12-31-15 | Msgr. Charles Pope

[Salvation]

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? A Meditation on the Mystery of Time

Msgr. Charles Pope December 31, 2015

I open our New Year's Eve late night Mass (11:15 PM) with the observation that we begin Mass in one year and end in the next. New Year's Eve highlights the mysterious passage between years. In a way I suppose it is no more mysterious than the passage from Thursday to Friday or from 10:00 AM to 10:01 AM.

In one sense, nothing could be simpler than time. I might ask you, "What time is it?" You might reply, "It's 1:15." Simple! But time has mysteries about it.

What is time? Some say it's merely a measure of change. But that doesn't really make a lot of sense because change doesn't occur at a steady pace at all.

Some say it's just another way of measuring distance in the space-time continuum. Time and distance are certainly related. To look out at the stars at night is to look into the past; it has taken millions of years for the light from some stars to reach us over vast distances through the vacuum of space. Even the light from our sun is eight minutes old before it reaches us.

But there's more to time than distance and we all know it. There are several different words for time in Greek. Chronos refers to clock time. Kairos encompasses a complex notion of time experienced subjectively. Sometimes ten minutes can seem like an hour, but there are other times when an hour can pass by swiftly. Further, things can seem fitting at certain times but not at others. Kairos thus expresses an elastic notion of time. Lastly, there is aeon (eternity, or the fullness of time). I'll comment more on aeon below.

Every year at this point I ponder the mystery of time, probably because time is so much on our minds. As I do so, I am mindful that most of us think we know what time is until we're asked to define it in some meaningful way. It reminds me of what St Augustine once said about another mystery: the Trinity. If someone asks me to define time I am tempted quote St. Augustine: "If you don't ask me, I know. If you ask me, I don't know." So time, while plain and simple at one level is mysterious at others.

I cannot list all such mysteries, but consider a few:

1. The Mystery of Time's Elasticity -- We like to think that time is unvarying, that 10 minutes here is the same as 10 minutes there. But science has largely disproved that. For example, as an object approaches the speed of light, time slows down. Further, strong gravitational forces also slow down time. On a very large planet with strong gravitational forces I would age less rapidly than on a smaller planet. Granted, it would take a huge difference in speed or gravity to be able to observe much of a difference, but the law of relativity does demonstrate that time does not pass equally everywhere. In a way, it is almost like a comparing a large, lumbering elephant to a tiny mouse. As the mouse scurries across the floor (pursued by my cat!) its speed is amazing, almost as if the mouse were operating in a different time frame.
2. The Mystery of Life Spans -- Why are the life spans of different species so different? Like me, my cat Daniel is a mammal; our physiology is quite similar in most respects. Yet his clock is likely to expire after about 15 years while mine is more likely to make it closer to 80 years. Certain turtles can live up to 150 years. Many types of parrots can live to be over 100, while other birds live only 10 to 15 years. Most fish live only a few years, but carp can live up to 100 years. We all seem to have a clock, a designated life span. But that life span seems quite variable even among very similar animals. We seem to carry the mystery of time within us. I have never heard a satisfying explanation of the wide variability in life spans.
3. The Mystery of our "Inner Clock" -- Most of our demarcations of time are clearly rooted in the celestial cycle. A day is the cycle of the earth rotating on its axis. A year is the cycle of the earth orbiting the sun. A month (a least originally) is rooted in the cycle of the moon orbiting the earth ("month" is just a mispronunciation of “moonth”). Seasons result from the earth's trajectory around the sun as well as the tilt of the earth's rotational axis in relation to the plan of its orbit. More mysterious is the 7-day cycle we call the "week." Where does it come from? Human beings in most cultures seem to have a need to "reset the clock" every seven days. The Genesis account of creation in seven days, surely influenced the Judeo-Christian culture, but other cultures show a similar tendency toward seven days. Where does the seven-day week come from? It's mysterious. As humans, we seem have some inner clock that needs resetting at about that frequency.
4. The Mystery of Eternity -- Lastly, there is the mystery of what we call "eternity." Most people misunderstand the word simply to mean a very long time. But that is not what is meant by the word. When the Greeks coined the word eternity (aeon) they meant by it "the fullness of time." Eternity is the past, present, and future all being experienced at once. I cannot tell you what this is like but I can illustrate it. Look at the graphic of the clock at the upper right. It shows 2:00 (let's assume in the afternoon). That means that 10:00 AM is in the past while 6:00 PM is in the future. But consider the dot at the center of the clock. At that spot, 10:00 AM, 2:00 PM, and 6:00 PM are all the same; they are equally present to the center. We live our life in serial time, on the outer edge of the clock. But God does not; He lives in eternity. God lives in the fullness of time. For God, the past and the future are the same as the present. God is not "waiting" for things to happen. All things just are. God is not waiting and wondering whether you or I will get to Heaven. He is not watching history unfold like a movie. In eternity, thousands of years ago is just as present as is thousands of years from now. Scripture hints at God's eternity in numerous passages.

But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day (2 Peter 3:8).

Your eyes foresaw my actions; in your book all are written down; my days were shaped, before one came to be (Ps 139, 15).

For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night (Ps 90:4).

And then there is simply the God's name: "I AM." In this name there is no past and no future, just an eternal now (the present tense). Jesus declared to the crowds, Before Abraham ever was, I AM (John 8:58). So here is the most awesome mystery of time: the fullness of time, eternity.

Ponder God's glory and the mystery of time!

Here's a remarkable video on the mystery of time:

[Salvation]

Video

[Lx]

He does:

[occamrzr06]

Does anyone really care?

[samtheman]

HIGH Up in the North in the land called Svithjod, there stands a rock. It is a hundred miles high and a hundred miles wide. Once every thousand years a little bird comes to this rock to sharpen its beak.

When the rock has thus been worn away, then a single day of eternity will have gone by.

— http://www.authorama.com/story-of-mankind-3.html

[alloysteel]

Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.

That would be chaotic.

[marron]

"If you don't ask me, I know. If you ask me, I don't know."

Good piece. I'm chewing on the same issues.

[Rio]

25 or 6 to 4?

[occamrzr06]

Not a big Chicago fan?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uy0ldI_1HA

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? Lyrics

As I was walking down the street one day
A man came up to me and asked me what the time was that was
On my watch, yeah
And I said
Does anybody really know what time it is
I don’t
Does anybody really care
Care
If so I can’t imagine why
About time
We’ve all got time enough to cry
Oh no, no

And I was walking down the street one day
A pretty lady looked at me and said her diamond watch had
Stopped cold dead
And I said
Does anybody really know what time it is
I don’t
Does anybody really care
Care
If so I can’t imagine why
About time
We’ve all got time enough to cry
Oh no, no

And I was walking down the street one day
Being pushed and shoved by people trying to beat the clock,
Oh, so I just don’t know,
I just don’t know
And I said, yes I said

People runnin’ everywhere
Don’t know the way to go
Don’t know where I am
Can’t see past the next step
Don’t have to think past the last mile
Have no time to look around
Just run around, run around and think why

Does anybody really know what time it is
I don’t
Does anybody really care
Care
If so I can’t imagine why
About time
We’ve all got time enough to die
Oh no, no

[Parmy]

You are right. It really doesn't matter because a vast majority of people go about their lives without giving time a thought. They are aware of past events or happenings to themselves and they, for the most part, are aware they have a future.

But, IMHO, time is just a concept that mankind has and us using to create order in their lives. For instance, trains need time schedules to avoid collisions. i.e. Most of the train collisions of the 19th century was probably due to the lack of standardized time which allowed confusion and trains running in opposite directions on the same track.

I have tried to explain to people that while we were talking that as soon as the words came out of my mouth, they were in the past. I was trying to illustrate that the present is only a moment before it, almost instantly, moves into the past and the future, almost immediately, moves into the present, for a moment, before that too moves into the past.

Confusing, isn't it?

[dforest]

I was going to post the same. It dates us though! LOL

[twister881]

Here's a time reference of importance to all normal Americans:

Obama Countdown Clock

[Regulator]

About Time?

If so, I can’t imagine why...

[I want the USA back]

Read Thomas of Aquinas. Time is the numbering of movement. The assigning of numbers to motion.

Everything is in motion, having received its impetus from another object; all motion can be traced back to the Prime Mover, God, who exists outside the time continuum.

What the contemporary world needs is a return to the teachings of St. Thomas of Aquinas

[occamrzr06]

Good Article.

[Mastador1]

Sara Evans

"Time Won't Tell"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4SBNlqpX_I

Can't believe that after all this time

You keep slipping back across my mind

Did we maybe leave the love behind afraid of what we felt

Other loves I've had have come and gone

I don't know why, they just don't last too long

There are questions that go on and go

That time won't tell

Time won't tell me how it might have been

And time won't make what's wrong alright

It can only take me back again

Feeling all those memories in black and white

I watch his kiss good-bye that day

Here's where you turn around and walk away

Where were the words that would have made you stay

Time won't tell

No, time won't tell me how it might have been

And time won't make what's wrong alright

It can only take me back again

Feeling all those memories in black and white

You never see the road you didn't take

You never feel the love you failed to make

But you never know might be the words to say

And time won't tell

Time won't tell

[Hot Tabasco]

`Time seems to accelerate as we age.....My first 9 years of employment took forever. The past 9 years of retirement have gone by in the blink of an eye.......

[ETL]

Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.

Yet time depends on one's state of motion relative to other reference frames.

[delchiante]

Quote-what the contemporary world needs is a return to the teachings of St. Thomas of Aquinas

If St. Thomas of Aquinas numbered His Days like the Father does in His Word and His Calendar, it would erase lots of false teachings- and false worship.

But how to tell people today isn’t really named after a false goddess named Friy or frigg.

Tough to worship the Father in Spirit and Truth when things like Thor or the moon or the sun gets a ‘day’.

But we can be assured His Day is coming.
And the Kingdom will have zero to do with naming days after false gods or created things..

Truly amazing how scripture says times and law would change, and the world can’t see it. But that is the subtlety of the enemy.

[Salvation]

Monsignor Pope Ping!