When the Fullness of Time Had Come
by Tony Micallef, OCDS
One Summer evening, some years ago, my daughter
and I were walking the beach, watching the
sun go down. And we asked, which sunset did
we think it was, which number? How many had
there been before it since the beginning?
We calculated the number of sunsets since
we were born and wondered how many till we
die. How good and loving God is! Waiting
billions of days, each day unfolding the
circumstances that would bring us here today,
able to know Him and love Him. God, who was
and who is, lovingly plans everyday, every
one of them.
Now it does not take much skill to
figure
out the number of days Our Lord spent
on
earth. The Gospel tells us that He
lived
about thirty three years, and so we
multiply
33 by 365, the number of days in a
year and
we get approximately 12000 days. Just
a coincidence?
Jesus had 12000 days, 12000 sunsets
to journey
from the manger to the cross. 12000
days
of living, learning, praying, suffering
and
dying for us. We know He is the only
person
in the history of humanity who was
born to
die. We are all born to live but He
had eternal
life already before He was born and
so He
was born to die, for our sake.
I counted the number of sunsets Therese
of
Lisieux was on earth. She was born
January
2 1873 and died September 30 1897.
She lived
9038 days if we count leap years. 9038
days
to journey from the crib to the cross.
How
many do we have? Some of us have lived
twice
as long as Jesus lived, 24000 days,
perhaps
more. Some have lived less. But from
today
how many do we still have to complete
the
journey?
And as to which day it was that saw
the coming
of the Christ Child, only God knows.
All
we know is that when the fullness of
time
had come, God sent his Son, born of
a woman.
And in some sense we can also say that
when
the fullness of time had come, God
sent each
and every one of us with the mission
to respond
to His love, to love Him back, now
and forever.
It is something worth pondering on.
How good
God is to all of us, how unsearchable
His
judgments, how inscrutable His ways.
The
question is. Do we make the best of
each
day we have to journey toward the cross?
Walking the beach, one Summer evening.
We
watched the sun go down in splendor,
my friend
and I.
And wondered how many sunsets had occurred
since we were born.
How many till we die.
And it appeared to us
that since the beginning,
billions of times the sun had risen.
And billions more these rocks and sand
had watched it set. A silent cycle
by God
ordained. By God's majestic hand patiently
driven.
How many days had burst
with human eye unseen?
Which one Adam beheld the first?
Which one, the fall had seen?
Which night was it? We said.
Which one?
When to redeem us from our sins
God sent His only Son.
Countless the number for our finite
minds,
we did not know the sum.
But trusted in His words that said.
When the fullness of time had come.