52

I'd like to remind you once more that we don't have much time left, tempus breve est, because life on earth is short, and also that, since we have the means, all that's needed is our good will to make use of the opportunities that God grants us. From the moment that Our Lord came into this world, 'the acceptable time, the day of salvation' commenced for us and for all men. May Our Father God never have to cast upon us the reproach he spoke through the prophet Jeremiah, 'the kite, circling in the air, knows its time; turtledove can guess, and swallow, and stork, when they should return; only for my people the divine appointment passes unobserved'.

There are no bad or inopportune days. All days are good, for serving God. Days become bad only when men spoil them with their lack of faith, their laziness and their indolence, which turns them away from working with God and for God. 'At all times I will bless the Lord.' Time is a treasure that melts away. It escapes from us, slipping through our fingers like water through the mountain rocks. Tomorrow will soon be another yesterday. Our lives are so very short. Yesterday has gone and today is passing by. But what a great deal can be done for the love of God in this short space of time!

No excuses will do us any good. Our Lord has been very generous with us, He has instructed us patiently. He has explained his precepts to us through parables. He has insisted tirelessly. As with Philip, he could ask us, 'here am I, who have been all this while in your company; have you not learned to recognise me yet?' The time has now come for us to get down to hard work, filling each moment of the day and bearing, willingly and joyfully, 'the day's burden and the heat'.

Subjects
This point in another language