Our Time is Brief

By St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain, from the book “Christian Morality” published by 

That the time of our life is [all too] brief for us to acquire perfection and blessedness. 

You, my Christians, suppose that the span of your life is so long that it is sufficient for you to expend it both on the service of your soul and on amusements and shows. But can your supposition be correct? No, it is, in fact, quite erroneous. For the service of the soul is so great and the Heavenly good things that we are going to inherit are so many and so infinite in permanence and majesty that, were it possible for a man to live from the creation of the world until its consummation, and to spend the entire time of this life of his on the service of God and on the enjoyment of those good things, without spending even a single moment of it on anything else in the world, nevertheless, this time does not suffice for anyone to attain to the perfection of virtue or to the acquisition of the good things of blessedness that he deserves; for there is no comparison between the infinite and the finite. Hence, the Apostle Paul, although he attained to the third Heaven; although he was caught up to Paradise while still alive and heard ineffable words, which it is not possible for a man to utter; although he strained forward to what lay ahead and forgot what lay behind; for all that, he still declares and states, not in humble-mindedness but in truth, that he has not yet arrived at any measure of perfection: "Brethren, I count not myself yet to have apprehended”, and again: "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.” And it was not only Paul that thought and said this; he also enjoins us to think the same, saying: "Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded." In his interpretation of this verse, the Divine Theophylact says: "What is this? To forget what lies behind; for it is the mark of a perfect man not to reckon himself perfect; this, indeed, is perfection, not to be self-confident.” Hence, too, the Divine Gregory of Nyssa says: "Perfection, in truth, consists in never standing still as one increases towards what is better or limiting perfection by any boundary.” Taking his starting point from this, St. John of the Ladder elegantly states that here on earth complete perfection is incomplete: "The perfect, but unfinished perfection of the perfect." 

Now, if a life as long and full of years as that of the entire cosmos is not sufficient for the service of God or for the attainment of perfection, reflect now how foolish you are who think that your brief life suffices for you to serve God and your soul and to play games and watch shows. It is 7,300 years or more since the Devil fell from Heaven, and God knows how many years are still to pass until the end of the world. In spite of this, the Devil considers this very long interval of time too short for him to carry out his diabolical wishes and to satiate his wickedness as he deceives and torments human beings. For this reason, it is written in the sacred Apocalypse that at the time when Lucifer was hurled down from Heaven by the Archangel Michael, he descended to earth with great wrath, because he knows that he has but a short time to reign and lead men astray: “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the Devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” The Devil reckons seven thousand years a short time, and this is why he strives with great wrath to lead men astray; and Christians reckon the seventy or eighty years of their life a long time, and for this reason they desire to spend it on amusements and shows. Oh, the great folly and ignorance of Christians!

How long is man's life

Bearing with me now, if some Christians today live all of the seventy or eighty years that we conjectured above, most of the rest of them die either in their forties, or in their twenties, or some in their teens, while yet others reach only their childhood years and die.

Nonetheless, even if some do live all eighty years, yet, if we subtract from these the forty years that they spend sleeping at night, the fifteen years in which they cannot perfectly distinguish between good and evil, and five additional years which they might spend in sickness and bodily suffering, there remain only twenty years. Imagine, then, how witless are those octogenarian Christians who regard these twenty years as a long time and on this account wish to spend them in vain and soul-destroying games and spectacles and have no desire to spend them in the service of their salvation.