For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven… (Ecclesiastes 3:1)
Wisdom tells us we need to know what time it is. Which doesn’t mean we know the time on the clock or our cell phone. It is knowing the right moment, whenever that might occur. It is time, as a deacon says at the beginning of the Divine Liturgy, for the Lord to act. St John Climacus writes:
If there is a time for all things under heaven, as the Preacher tells us, and by ‘all things’ we should know it means all things that concern our sacred life, then, if you are willing, let us examine it so that we may attempt to do at each moment what is fitting for that occasion. This is surely the case for those who enter the games, for there is a time for dispassion (I make this remark for the athletes who are doing their apprenticeship). There is a time for weeping. There is a time for hardness of heart. There is a time for obedience. There is a time to give orders. There is a time to fast and a time to eat. There is a time for struggling with our foe, the body, and a time when the fire burns down. There is a time of spiritual tempest, and a time for spiritual peace.
There is a time for profound grief and a time for spiritual gladness. There is a time for instruction and a time for listening. There is a time for corruptions, perhaps from pride, and a time for purifying through meekness. There is a time for battle and a time for secure rest. There is a time for stillness and a time for distraction. There is a time for ceaseless prayer and a time for devout ministry. Therefore may we not be tricked by haughty zeal and pursue, prematurely, what will happen in its time. That is, we should not during winter seek for that which should come in the summer, or at spring for what is due at the harvest. Because there is a time to sow in toil, and a time to harvest the unmentionable graces. For otherwise we will not obtain even in its time what is fitting for that time. (The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Kindle Location 2383-2394)
Know what time it is! For when spiritually we do not know the seasons and the time, we are subject to despair and despondency.
Despondency—in all its complexity and cunningness—arises from a relationship to time that has become broken. It amounts to no less than a perpetual attempt by the mind to flee from the present moment, to disregard the gift of God’s presence at each juncture of time and space. The path to healing—paved and well trodden by steadfast souls who have gone before us—is one and the same as the path back to the present. (Nicole Roccas , Time and Despondency: Regaining the Present in Faith and Life, Kindle Location 150-153)
Our Lord Jesus Christ says He is with us always. If we always are in His presence, then the time is right. All around us things can be changing, even for the worse, but when we are in Christ we are in the right moment.
For he says, “At the acceptable time I have listened to you, and helped you on the day of salvation.” Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. (2 Corinthians 6:2)
Fraternized 