John Donne writing in the 17th Century offers a wonderful reflection on seasons and time as related to God’s own love for His Creation. The version below was adapted to conform to 21st Century spellings and grammar.
“God made sun and moon to distinguish seasons, and day and night, and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in their seasons.
But God made no decree to distinguish the seasons of his mercies. In paradise, the fruits were ripe, the first minute, and in heaven it is always Autumn: his mercies are ever in their maturity.
We ask panem quotidianum, our daily bread, and God never says you should have come yesterday. He never says you must [come] again tomorrow, but today if you will hear his voice, today he will hear you.
If some king of the earth has so large an extent of dominion in north and south, as that he has winter and summer together in his dominions, so large an extent east and west as that he has day and night together in his dominions, much more has God mercy and judgment together.
He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light. He can bring your summer out of winter, though you have no spring.
Though in the ways of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, you have been benighted until now, winter and frozen, clouded and eclipsed, damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied until now,
now God comes to you, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of spring, but as the sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons. ” (LXXX Sermons; Sermon II)
Fraternized 