Posted on 09/08/2016 7:35:42 AM PDT by Salvation
A common reading at the funeral Mass is this powerful one from the Book of Ecclesiastes:
I have considered the task that God has appointed for the sons of men to be busied about. He has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into their hearts, without man’s ever discovering, from beginning to end, the work which God has done (Eccl 3:10-11).
Somewhere in our hearts is something that the world cannot, and did not, give us. This passage calls it “the timeless.” We also refer to it as eternity or even infinity.
But where did this concept come from? The world is finite. Time here is serial. Things have a beginning, a middle, and an end. We do not experience anything of the timeless. Rather, everything is governed by the steady ticking of the clock. Every verb we use is time-based. Everything is rooted in chronological time. Yet somehow we can grasp the timeless. Yes, we do know it.
The experience of “forever” does not exist in this world, but it is still there our minds and hearts. There is no way to travel through time here in this world. Yet instinctively we know that somehow we can. Science fiction and fantasy novels often feature going back to the past or into the future. The world could not teach us this because we are locked in the present and have never actually travelled in time. Somehow, though, we know that we can do it.
The word “eternity” comes from the Greek word “aeon,” which means “the fullness of time.” It is not just a long time; it is all time: past, present, and future all at once. If you look at a clock you’ll notice that at the center dot, 10 AM, 2 PM, and 6 PM are all the same, even though 10 AM is in the past, 2 PM is now, and 6 PM is in the future. This is aeon, eternity, the fullness of time; this is timelessness.
From whence did we get such a concept? The world cannot give it, for the world does not have it. Nothing can give what it does not have. The world is finite, limited, and time-bound—not timeless. It cannot, therefore, give what is infinite or “timeless.” If we have such a notion it must come from outside time or in the fullness of time, something that contains the full sweep of time all at once. But what is outside time?
Monsignor Pope Ping!
The Hebrew word translated “the timeless” there (from the Revised New American Bible; the KJV and Douay translated it “the world”, and many other translations render it “eternity) is “olam”, which is usually translated “forever”.
POpe alert bfl.
God is outside time.
God does not participate in the cause-effect sequence of material objects.
God does not change. Nothing affects God, but everything has its cause in God.
St Thomas of Aquinas said it better.
Humans cannot travel in time. Humans are part of the cause-effect continuum and cannot be out of it.
I have other plans once I croak.
The sense of eternal comes from Love. A mother’s love lasts an entire lifetime. It hints that true love is eternal and timeless. Since love comes from God and God is eternal (what greater love is there than Jesus gift of sacrifice and salvation). God’s love is eternal. Love is the key piece to the puzzle.
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