The Present Only, Really Is

[JimR-OCDS]

If you have never read “The Confessions of St. Augustine,” you really should.

Often I’ve heard people say at this website, that those who live in the moment, deceive themselves, but as St. Augustine explains, its really all that is.

CHAP. XIV. – NEITHER TIME PAST NOR FUTURE, BUT THE PRESENT ONLY, REALLY IS.

1. At no time, therefore, hadst Thou not made anything, because Thou hadst made time itself. And no times are co-eternal with Thee, because Thou remainest for ever; but should these continue, they would not be times. For what is time? Who can easily and briefly explain it? Who even in thought can comprehend it, even to the pronouncing of a word concerning it? But what in speaking do we refer to more familiarly and knowingly than time? And certainly we understand when we speak of it; we understand also when we hear it spoken of by another. What, then, is time? If no one ask of me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not. Yet I say with confidence, that I know that if nothing passed away, there would not be past time; and if nothing were coming, there would not be future time; and if nothing were, there would not be present time. Those two times, therefore, past and future, how are they, when even the past now is not; and the future is not as yet? But should the present be always present, and should it not pass into time past, time truly it could not be, but eternity. If, then, time present – if it be time – only comes into existence because it passes into time past, how do we say that even this is, whose cause of being is that it shall not be – namely, so that we cannot truly say that time is, unless because it tends not to be?

CHAP. XV. – THERE IS ONLY A MOMENT OF PRESENT TIME.

1. And yet we say that “time is long and time is short;” nor do we speak of this save of time past and future. A long time past, for example, we call a hundred years ago; in like manner a long time to come, a hundred years hence. But a short time past we call, say, ten days ago: and a short time to come, ten days hence. But in what sense is that long or short which is not? For the past is not now, and the future is not yet. Therefore let us not say, “It is long;” but let us say of the past, “It hath been long,” and of the future, “It will be long.” O my Lord, my light, shall not even here Thy truth deride man? For that past time which was long, was it long when it was already past, or when it was as yet present? For then it might be long when there was that which could be long, but when past it no longer was; wherefore that could not be long which was not at all. Let us not, therefore, say, “Time past hath been long;” for we shall not find what may have been long, seeing that since it was past it is not; but let us say “that present time was long, because when it was present it was long.” For it had not as yet passed away so as not to be, and therefore there was that which could be long. But after it passed, that ceased also to be long which ceased to be.
   leaderu.com/cyber/books/augconfessions/bk11.html#BOOKXICHAPII

The entire book can be found here;

leaderu.com/cyber/books/augconfessions/bk11.html

In Christ
Jim

 

[BarbaraTherese]

… …The Eternal Now…

 

[Augustine]

If you have never read “The Confessions of St. Augustine,” you really should.

Are you kidding me? Guess why my Confirmation patron saint and my nickname is Augustine? His Confessions blew my away!

To start off, I was in my early 20’s, having never been properly catechized, when I found Confessions at a bookstore. I was amazed because I thought that saints were the stuff of legends, so finding a book by one really got my attention. I just couldn’t drop the book. A true page-turner, not because of any thrilling action, but because St. Augustine’s life as a pagan was so much like mine. And to top it off, a guy like me who is a saint!

I couldn’t live like I had been living until then anymore after reading the Confessions. I started going to Mass every Sunday for the first time in my life, although I was a cradle-Catholic.

I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for St. Augustine’s Confessions and I wouldn’t keep on keeping on if it weren’t for his example and his intercession.

St. Monica, pray for us.