DOMINICAN VOCATIONS
PROVINCE OF THE ASSUMPTION
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DOMINICAN VOCATIONS PROVINCE OF THE ASSUMPTION |
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Article (Part II): Time is of
the Essence |
Br Vincent Magat, O.P. |
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Time, as they say, is of the essence. It is the essence of good storytelling not to waste time, to skip over days, months or decades in a single phrase, to portray the heart of the matter and leave out all unnecessary detail; it is about the birth of the baby, but not about which hour of the night its cries woke the parents on the first, third or fiftieth day; it is about the baby’s first step, but not about the one millionth step with which it begins to cross North Terrace on another quiet yet happy day; it is about conquest and victory; it is about ending with “happily ever after” and it is not about the actual ever after. Of course in times past storytelling was just the same. But unlike today, the stories children heard were in the context of a life in which even the young needed to pitch in if there was to be enough food for everyone on the table. The great tragedies and the great victories were thus understood side by side with the constant labour that goes into providing for life. The strength and courage mustered by a paladin to slay the dragon and rescue the princess was seen against the familiar backdrop of the patience needed to grow crops or train a man of war. Today, one fears, stories are understood rather differently by many, young and old alike. Pacey plots and sudden twists, endless action and excitement, create expectations beyond the field of storytelling and in the absence of a counterbalance, they begin to effect the way we look at life. It is no wonder that entertaining our children now costs about as much as feeding them. Time is of the essence, but if we lose the sense of good things taking time to develop we begin to lose sight of our humanity in no uncertain terms. Virtues, knowledge, skills, talents, personal integrity and the very ability to love are essential human traits that take years if not decades to develop. We are well aware what fruits a good character brings, these things are recorded for us in the stories we have heard, but we seem to be at a loss when it comes to actually building a good character or impressing the virtues in our children. The greatest casualty of course is our faith. Faith can grow only if it is allowed to take a hold on our life. If we are to be true people of God, we must allow His goodness to reach every aspect of our life, to make us whole and complete, to make each individual one. Faith does not have to surface in every endeavor we undertake, but it must be implicit in all our actions and all our thoughts. It is what the Christian tradition has called the ‘mind of Christ’, a habit of thought and actions, acquired over the years most often through reflection on times we have gone wrong. Far from forbidding the treasures of storytelling, what this leads us to realize is that our children need to aspire to greatness, but a greatness that embraces all of life, from cradle to grave and beyond. Again and again I have been asked about demons, miracles and exorcisms; but the making of a saint is in an all pervasive sense of goodness cultivated over the years. The miracles are only the tip of an iceberg. |
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