Newman on the Value of Time
“Another year is now opening upon us; it speaks to the thoughtful, and is heard by those, who have expectant ears, and watch for Christ’s coming. The former year is gone, it is dead, there it lies in the grave of past time, not to decay however, and be forgotten, but kept in the view of God’s omniscience…” (PS VII, 9).[1]
These words of John Henry Newman, addressed to the faithful on 1st January 1832, invite us to reflect, with Newman, upon the meaning of the time which is given to us. Click on the links below for further reflections.
The Shortness of Time
Newman once wrote of the minister of Christ: “All that he does is intended to remind men that time is short, death is certain, and eternity long” (PS VIII, 147). These rather blunt words are not meant to deny or to minimize the earthly responsibility of the Christian. Rather, they aim to draw our attention to eternal and lasting values and, to serve as a reminder of the transience of the finite, which falls unchecked into the “grave of past time.”
Today the thought of the shortness of time is often pushed from our minds. A certain mentality seeks to deceive people with the idea that life on earth has no end. Whatever is a reminder of mortality and death is undesirable. According to Newman the thought of death is a thought from which man by nature shrinks, but it is nonetheless a useful and salutary thought. In a sermon about the fleetingness of time he describes how man in the face of death understands the meaning of the time given him: “How infinitely important now appears the value of time, now when it is nothing to him! Nothing; for though he spend centuries waiting for Christ, he cannot now alter his state from bad to good, or from good to bad. What he dieth that he must be for ever…. What an estimate shall we form of time while we are waiting for judgment! Yes, it is we – all this, I repeat, belongs to us most intimately” (PS VII, 6).
Our time on earth is short. We must manage it well, conscious of our responsibility, because it is the “seed of eternity” (PS VII, 7). Therefore Newman wrote: “Let us profit by what every day and hour teaches us, as it flies” (PS IV, 265). And in a letter he stressed: “Time, particularly the time of old men, is too precious to expend in what is not a call of duty.”[2]
The Fullness of Time
The Oxford preacher not only speaks of the transience of time, which gives human life its seriousness, but in faith sees time as totally focused on Christ and coming from Christ, who is its focal point. The time before Christ, the longing of the human heart, the reasoning of the philosophers, and the revelations of the prophets all find their goal and their fulfilment in the Incarnation of the Son of God. “Christ came for this very purpose, to gather together in one all the elements of good dispersed throughout the world, to make them His own, to illuminate them with Himself, to reform and refashion them into Himself. He came to make a new and better beginning of all things than Adam had been, and to be the fountain-head from which all good henceforth might flow. Hence it is said that ‘in the dispensation of the fullness of times’ Almighty God ‘gathered together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth.'”[3]
In many sermons Newman proclaims the wonder of the Incarnation. He speaks of the divinity of the Lord and of His existence “while as yet time was not” and gives witness to his coming in time into “this mortal world” to save us from death and to open the door to everlasting life (PS II, 30, 32). “By birth the Only-begotten and Express Image of God; and in taking our flesh, not sullied thereby, but raising human nature with Him, as He rose from the lowly manger to the right hand of power, – raising human nature, for Man has redeemed us, Man is set above all creatures, as one with the Creator, Man shall judge man at the last day” (PS II, 39).
With Christ the last days have begun. He holds time in his hands and gives each moment a value for eternity. The time after Christ walked the earth is therefore a time of grace, a time filled with the presence of the Lord. He who has returned to the Father remains nonetheless present in time and brings us into eternity with His grace. Through the Church and her priests we live in the presence of Christ, because “what they do, He does; when they baptize, He is baptizing; when they bless, He is blessing. He is in all acts of His Church, and one of its acts is not more truly His act than another, for all are His. Thus we are, in all times of the Gospel, brought close to His Cross. We stand, as it were under it, and receive its blessings fresh from it; only that since, historically speaking, time has gone on, and the Holy One is away, certain outward forms are necessary, by way of bringing us again under His shadow; and we enjoy those blessings through a mystery, or sacramentally, in order to enjoy them really” (PS VI, 242).
The mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God is not something which belongs to the past. The Lord lives in His Church and the Church lives in Him. He is our stay for the future. Newman reminds us: “‘The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us;’ (Jn 1:14) this is the glorious, unsearchable, incomprehensible Truth, on which all our hopes for the future depend…” (SVO, 76).
The Gift of Time
As Christians we are called to use the grace of each moment and to follow the call of Christ in faith. “For time stays for no one; the word of call is spoken and is gone; if we do not seize the moment, it is lost. Christ was on His road heavenward. He walked by the sea of Galilee; He ‘passed forth’ (Mt 9:9); He ‘passed by’ (Mk 2:14); He did not stop; all men must join Him, or He would be calling on others beyond them” (PS VIII, 21). The Lord gives grace for the time, but not unlimited time to respond to the grace. He wants us to use the grace in the time in which it is offered to us. Newman’s conversion is a striking example of this. As he realized, while writing his An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, [4] that the more recent doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church were not corruptions but developments, he decided to enter the Roman Catholic Church without further hesitation. He closed the unfinished Essay with the “Nunc dimittis” and the words: “Time is short, eternity is long” (Dev, 445).
Time is a precious gift. It should not pass us by without a thought, but should be used conscienciously and thankfully. Time offers us the chance to become like Christ and to arrive at the fullness of life in Him. “Such, then, is the present benefit which Christianity offers us; not only a renewal of our moral nature after Adam’s original likeness, but a blending of all its powers and affections into the one perfect man, ‘after the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.'”[5] In the years given to us we are called to let ourselves be changed through the grace of Christ and a courageous response in faith and conversion. “Here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often”(Dev, 40). God guides the Church and each of the faithful through many developments more and more into the truth. Because of this Truth is called “the daughter of time” (Dev, 47).
Such a life in the Truth of Christ is necessarily a life of holiness. It makes the faith and thus the Church beautiful, inviting and attractive. It doesn’t consist in extraordinary things, but in the faithful carrying out of normal daily duties. As an old man Newman wrote in almost childlike simplicity: “If you ask me what you are to do in order to be perfect, I say, first – Do not lie in bed beyond the due time of rising; give your first thoughts to God; make a good visit to the Blessed Sacrament; say the Angelus devoutly; eat and drink to God’s glory; say the Rosary well; be recollected; keep out bad thoughts; make your evening meditation well; examine yourself daily; go to bed in good time, and you are already perfect.”[6]
[1] J. H. NEWMAN, Parochial and Plain Sermons (PS), Vols. I-VIII. Westminster, Md: Christian Classics, 1966-1968.
[2] The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, Vol. XX, Charles Stephen Dessain, ed. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1970, p. 237.
[3] J. H. NEWMAN, Lectures on Justification. Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1966, 193-194. Newman is quoting Eph 1:10.
[4] J. H. NEWMAN, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (Dev). Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1968.
[5] J. H. NEWMAN, Fifteen Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford Between A.D. 1826 and 1843. London: Rivingtons, 1890, p.48.
[6] Meditations and Devotions of the Late Cardinal Newman. Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1975, p.286.