The Fulness of Time

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1629, 21 December 1912, Page 21

The Fulness of Time

It may bo that time is but eternity torn Into shreds. It ma.v bo that time is the throb and rhythm of beings whoso life is a music that must pass. Indeed herein is tho very quality of music as apart from all other forms of Art. The arts that deal with Form and Colour eovot a material that will endure; a 6\ibitanco aero peronnius which will bo eet beyond Time and his all-levelling scythe. But music would be imposablo if its material endured. Tho noblest attribute of music is to take what is frailest and most unsubstantial in things—their passing, pulsations, their throbs, their laughter, their tears—and of these leavings from the spread board of other arts to mate immortal melody. Thus tho inevitable passing away which clings round the other aria as a Fate enters into the very heart of music as its nature. Thus, too, may we solve tho mystery why not only sad music is.sad, but all music is sad; for its lilt is over a danco of death, its song but th© avo atque valo of "men who die." Now, whereas God's great doings and proceedings within Himself are measured only by Eternity, all He brings to pass outside Himself have that number. and weight and order in timo which is either music or the makings of musio. Sometimes we go too far afiold—at least the musioians say—to find God's motive in His great delayings. We, beings of an hour, pray no more frequent prayer to God than that which beseoohes Him to "make 6peed." Wo do not understand tho divine harmony and musio engaged in His tarrying. We ask Him a thousand times why, having set His mind on coming to put the world to rights, He wa s so long in coming; why did eo many thousand wasteful years como between Paradise and Bethlonem? why, too, were there such great heart-withering tarryings when Ho did eome? why the long years of silence at Nazareth? why three crowded years of teaohing? why the swift Lent of risen lifo—a mere lightning flash of Him whom wo would havo "stay with us," as the steady Sun? The man who is, ft mere thinker may find ten thousand human or divine reasons for these perplexing delays. But the man

"whose whole lifo music is" is perhaps nearer the truth when he sees in them only the throb and rhythm of a divine music. He remembers the provorb of the mediaeval plain-singers, "Pulchritudo cantus in pausis coiisistit"—the beauty ~of. song is in its silences. There is a long silent spell of nothing, done. Then things happen by command of God in the "fulness of time." And thus the music of things is but their silence moulded and carved by what is said or done. The thought which we must give the : Mysteries of the .Rosary is not a mere mechanical concentration: it is almost more, an offering of the will. In this.gTeat •prayer of tho Incarnation, understanded 1 only by men of good-will, the heart must by right play the major parts. The great dominant thoughts which are its life are even compatible with lessor thoughts, which are distractions only when they distract, by withdrawing tho soul from its central rest.; They, are,to be judged, as tho seaman judges, tho' fledgling waves which'arc,borne on tho bosom of the high billows. Whilst the heart is one 'with the Beloved* in' His Lifo and death and' rev ■ suiting life : after death, thesO ."Josser thoughts come in and go out of the mind's deep, repose in God. ; The Mysteries' of tho Eosary focus mind and heart-uppn.'Bomo event of joy, sorrow, or. glory in the lifo of Jesus.. There is a' vocal, element oi prayer which, 'to. tho heart'that loves, is ,less a distraction, towards the. lower, needs of .'tho fancy, or tho finger than .a . Jacob's ladder to lead the climbing' feet, heavenward towards the stars... A great speaker toys with tho . trinkets on his chain in a paradoxical effort to- concentrate his mind on things of .the mind. When ,Elijah sought the gift of prophecy ho besought them' : to bring'him a minstrel/ "And when .the minstrel played, tho hand ;of. the; ; Lord came upon him." Ho found inspiration where you and I, gentlo' reader, would find only distraction. Thus! tho vooal and thovmuhual- part of tho-Eosary, the mere telling- and' tallying the beads, ■ has. its effect in engaging tongue and hand with those 'lesser, activities.-.which leave ,the spirit free to soar. ■ Moreover, the bidding of, the Aves -plays a mystic part in focussing'the soul oii : its Saviour. .They determine how long the soul shall, bo focussed.- It is not a mere instantaneous impression; 'it is a time exposure. . ' ,> By a delicacy , of divine tot the length of time during.-which mind' and heart shall rest;on God is measured not. by the movement of a hand round, a'dial, nor yot by the movement of the earth, round tho sun, but by the circling of beads through hands that pray and the wreathing of Paters and Aves' by lips that love. Whilst the Pater and its attendant train of Aves movo gently between the fingers and through the lips, the soul, is resting in its thought of Jesus. Then when the Aves oease, and a certain fulness of time has come, one mystery of Jesus' life gives place to another, as wave follows wave on the doep and rhythm follows rhythm in the songs men sing. Even thus the prayers said on the lips and tho thoughts overflowing silently in the heart, in their rhythmic movement of speech and silence, of mystery and following mystery, becomo, by the fulness of their time and rhythm, a song of songs made to Him Whom Heaven's glee-sing-crs bore.with carols to the Vale of Tears. —Vincent M'Nabb, 0.P., in the London "Tablet." \