The Essence of Time: Past, Present, and Future

I was raised Catholic, but because of my inquisitive nature, I became an atheist by age of fourteen. I conjured up too many questions that I believed were disproves of God. One such question was, why do Catholics pray for the dead? Are the dead not already judged by God? And if they are waiting to be judged, has not their application for heaven been finalized based on the faith and actions while they were on Earth? What benefit could there be in praying for people after they have died? I had a false arrogance in regards to understanding of the nature of time. I still understand only a fraction of the mystery of time, but this fraction is important to know.

Have you ever thought about time?

Growing up we are taught about the three phases of time: the past, the present, and the future. Inherently, we give equal respect to each of the three. For some, including a younger me, because of the equal respect we conclude that the three phases are equal to each other. If you have not given much thought to time at all, that is how you might think of time, in three equal phases.

As I studied science and mathematics in college, no longer were the past, the present, and the future three equal parts. What we had was the past which was infinitely long, and the present which was a line-with no width- that acted as the instant transition from the past to future, and finally you had the future which was also infinitely long. This understanding is still true, but there is a deeper meaning to time that the knowledge of science and mathematics cannot explain. A deeper meaning that comes from the Wisdom of God.

Thanks to God for allowing St. Augustine and me know part of the Truth of time. To paraphrase St. Augustine, the present has no width. There is no such thing as a present century, decade, year, month, day, hour, minute, second, etc... For even the smallest amount of time conceivable has a portion that is in the past and exactly the rest in the future. For instance, using now as an example, if I say December is the present month, how could it be? If 6.875 days are in the past and 24.125 days are in the future? How can I then say the present is today, December 7, 2011, when 21 hours are in the past and 3 hours are in the future? And this reasoning goes on an infinite amount of times to smaller units of times. The present cannot be captured by any unit of time. With no width, the present "seems" like nothingness.

However, all of existence is lived in the now. The present paradoxically has no width yet is eternal. We must always remember to live in the now. God is the now, that is part of his eternal nature. The past does not exist, neither does the future. According to more of the Wisdom granted to St. Augustine, the past only exists because we bring it to the present through memory. And the future only exists because of our expectations that are brought to the present.

God is the now and there are other forces at work that will try to keep you from living in the present. These forces will try to make us bring the pains of our "past" and the anxieties of our "future" on to the present in order to cloud us from the now. The fulfillment of the Truth is to live in the now and to know that God loves us no matter what we do, and in turn we love him and our neighbors as we love ourselves.

If we love God, pray to him. If you love yourself, pray to God for yourself. If you love your neighbor pray for them, even after they have passed away. The now is infinite, God has heard your prayers even before your dead neighbor was born and those prayers were of great help.