The Moment Time Became Heavy
He noticed it standing in line at the pharmacy. The receipt printer jammed, the clerk apologized, and everyone sighed as if robbed. He glanced at his watch—nothing urgent, nowhere to be. Then it struck him, sudden and unwelcome: I’ve spent decades irritated at delays, living as though time were an unlimited allowance. The thought tightened his chest. Someday, there would be no delay—only the final call. And he would wish for five more minutes he had once thrown away like pocket lint.
There is a curious disparity in the spiritual life. Some souls burn with urgency; others drift, vaguely religious, comfortably distracted. Most hover somewhere in between—not hostile to God, but not moved by Him either. The difference is rarely intelligence or education. It is not temperament, nor even opportunity. The difference is whether time has become heavy.
Lukewarmness thrives where time feels disposable and inexhaustible. When tomorrow appears guaranteed, today loses consequence. Prayer can wait. Conversion can wait. Seriousness can wait. Eternity becomes an abstraction—true, perhaps, but distant enough to ignore. And so life proceeds in a comfortable fog of “basically fine.”
The saints were unsentimental about this condition. They did not diagnose it as malice, but as sleep. A soul asleep to eternity will not strain toward heaven. Why would it? There is no felt urgency, no pressure of consequence, no sense that the hourglass is already running.
This is why fear—properly understood—has always had a legitimate place in Christian awakening. Fear is not the goal; it is the alarm clock. It interrupts the fantasy that time is neutral and endless. It says plainly: This life is not a rehearsal. The Church has never apologized for this medicine, even when modern ears recoil. A soul anesthetized by comfort often needs a jolt before it can hear the quieter language of love.
Yet fear alone does not sustain a life of holiness. What sustains it is clarity—specifically, clarity about time. The decisive turn in the spiritual life often occurs when a person realizes that days are not interchangeable. Each day does something to us. It forms habits. It hardens inclinations. It either enlarges our capacity for God or trains us to live without Him. Neutral time is a myth.
This is the moment time becomes heavy.
When time becomes heavy, ordinary choices acquire moral gravity. The small kindness offered—or withheld—matters. The neglected prayer matters. The half-hearted confession matters. Not because God is petty, but because we are being shaped, quietly and relentlessly, by repetition. What we practice, we become. What we delay, we often lose.
The most dangerous sentence in the spiritual life is not rebellion. It is complacency: “I’m basically fine.” That sentence dissolves urgency without denying belief. It keeps the externals intact while hollowing out the interior life. It allows a man to remain religious without becoming repentant, moral without becoming holy, busy without becoming faithful.
Once time becomes heavy, that sentence no longer survives. It collapses under its own weight. A man begins to ask harder questions: If today were my last, would this be how I lived it? If judgment were not theoretical, would I still be postponing obedience? These are not neurotic questions. They are clarifying ones. They strip away trivia and expose priorities.
This is also where love finally enters—not sentimental affection, but sober attachment. Love grows when a soul understands the cost of delay and still chooses God. Love matures when obedience is no longer driven merely by fear of loss, but by desire for communion. But love, rightly ordered, presupposes awakening. One must first see that something real is at stake.
Modern spirituality often tries to invert this order, offering love without urgency, mercy without judgment, consolation without conversion. The result is predictably tepid. Love offered without weight becomes vague encouragement. Mercy without consequence becomes permission. Consolation without truth becomes anesthesia. The soul remains asleep. Love, mercy, and consolation are meant to complete conversion—not replace it.
The saints knew better. They knew that eternity presses upon every moment, whether acknowledged or not. They knew that time is the currency with which we purchase habit—and habit, character—and character, destiny. To waste time is not merely imprudent; it is spiritually costly.
The tragedy is not that many souls reject God outright. The tragedy is that many never realize what they are risking by drifting. They assume there will always be another season, another chance, another tomorrow. Scripture, tradition, and experience say otherwise. The door does not remain open indefinitely—not because God is stingy, but because we are finite.
The spiritual life begins in earnest when a man stops treating days as filler and starts treating them as formation. When time becomes heavy, prayer ceases to be optional. Confession ceases to be occasional. Charity ceases to be theoretical. The soul moves—not frantically, but deliberately—because it finally understands the stakes.
And this, perhaps, is the simplest way to say it:
A soul only becomes serious about salvation when time stops feeling disposable and inexhaustible.
Once that illusion shatters, the excuses follow it to the floor.
What remains is choice—clear, costly, and finally real.
I. Meaning — What This Essay Asserts
- The spiritual life begins in earnest when time ceases to feel disposable.
- Lukewarmness is sustained not by disbelief, but by the illusion that there is always more time.
- Awakening occurs when a soul recognizes that life is not neutral passage but moral formation.
- Fear, rightly understood, is not opposed to love; it is often the instrument that first awakens the soul to reality.
- Conversion requires urgency before it can mature into love.
II. Nuance — What This Essay Is Not Saying
- This is not an argument for anxiety, scrupulosity, or frantic spirituality.
- Fear is not presented as an end, but as an alarm that interrupts spiritual sleep.
- The essay does not deny mercy; it rejects mercy divorced from consequence.
- It does not claim that every delay is sinful, but that habitual postponement forms the soul toward indifference.
- The heaviness of time is not meant to crush the soul, but to clarify it.
III. Relation — How This Shapes the Christian Life
- When time becomes heavy, daily choices acquire moral weight.
- Prayer shifts from optional to necessary.
- Confession becomes formative rather than occasional.
- Charity moves from intention to action.
- The false refuge of “I’m basically fine” collapses under honest self-examination.
- The soul begins to live deliberately, not desperately — guided by truth rather than comfort.
IV. The Interior Response — Questions for Reflection
- Where in my life do I assume there will always be “later,” and what has that assumption already cost me?
- If today were not guaranteed to repeat, which habits would I no longer excuse?
- Do my daily patterns form me toward God — or train me to live comfortably without Him?
Closing Orientation
This commentary is not meant to induce fear, but to restore seriousness.
A soul only becomes capable of sustained love once it understands what is at stake.
Time does not merely pass.
It forms.