Today, When Eternity Began…

Last updated on: August 1, 2017 at 7:43 am by Matthew Tan

Today, When Eternity Began… 2017-08-01T07:43:11+10:00 Matthew Tan

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Source: Pixabay.com

At a recent retreat, someone said that eternity begins at your baptism. He also said that, in spite of this, many Christians live life as though they are in a waiting room, counting the empty units of time one by one, hoping for eternity to suddenly eternity interrupt the flow. In the mental image we have, this interruption will register as a major life event, before disappearing under the relentless flow of the mundane present.

Such a conception of eternity as interruption of the present is not only unsatisfying. If the statement that eternity begins at baptism – that incorporation of the person into the Body of Christ, into the Divine Logos whose imprint is in all creation – then for the Christian, it is actually the inverse that should be true. Rather than an empty day waiting to be interrupted by an eschaton, every single moment in this vale, when it is in the Divine Logos who is “the beginning and the end” (Rev 1:8), is the eschaton. The boundaries that clinically surround each moment into a hermetically sealed unit and separates one moment from another are broken down, and every moment is what Jean Luc Marion calls a “saturated phenomenon”, a platform from which everyone is catapulted to the very ends of time.

We are, on the one hand, thrown forward into the very end of history, where we are pressed against the limitations of our temporal existence. And yet, these experiences are still intimately present to us. We experience this most acutely in our experience of disappointments, our relationship breakdowns, our defeats, and particularly the moments when we are made aware of our death or the death of others. In these times we are made to come face to face, as St Augustine taught, of the vast chasm of desire within us that the things in this world, good though they might be, cannot ever satisfy. And it is at these moments when we desire more than what this time bounded world can offer that we come to what Luigi Giussani described as the beginnings of “the religious sense“.

On the other hand, each moment in the eschaton is also throwing us back to the beginning of history. Every moment is in this sense, edenic. We are given glimpses of this aspect of the eschaton when we are given material cues to be nostalgic, triggering our desire for our younger days, perhaps happier days at the beginning of relationships or a change in our state in life, or when times were more innocent, when we were more innocent*,* blissfully unaware of the hardships to come in later years. As Aaron Riches and Creston Davis tell us in an essay entitled “Metanoia: The Theological Praxis of Revolution“, we are in the wake of the Christ Event thrust into the beginning of materiality itself even as we live out our days in this mortal coil. Each new beginning strips each event in our lives, especially the most painful ones, the finality that we often attribute to them, a sentiment that is affirmed in the psalms where we are reminded that the mercies of the Lord begin anew every single day.

In each moment – each eschaton – we are stretched to recognise each day as one of what the prophets called “the latter days” when the plans of man come to nothing and what reaches fulfilment are the works of the Divine artist. At the same time, we are invited to recognise every day as a neo-Genesis, that formless void through which the fertile and creative breath of God courses to grant new life.

Previous Post

July 25, 2017

God and the Pink Elephant

Next Post

August 11, 2017 Fidelity in Difference

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category architecture art Augustine Belloc Benedict XVI bible blogs books bourgeois Christianity Campion College Chesterton Christianisation Church and Culture Church Fathers citizen conference conservative consumer culture cybernetics Desert Fathers discipleship distributism drinking ecclesiology economics education environment Evagrius of Pontus formation Foucault George Weigel Girard Graham Ward http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post interfaith Jacques Ellul John Chrysostom Julia Kristeva Latin liturgy mall marriage monasticism Music Narrative news philosophy polis politics pop culture postmodern city postsecular prayer prostestant quote Quotes Radical Orthodoxy resources Rome Rule of St. Benedict saint Saints secular sociology theological anthropology theology transcendance Uncategorized videos William Cavanaugh

Select a Month December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 October 2009 February 2008 December 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said, "Lord, increase our faith!"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

John Peter Paul The disciples