The video below shows the span of one woman’s life, some seventy years in less than a minute. How swiftly she moves through the stages of her life, from infancy to her golden years.
My mind drifted back to a photo album my father once assembled not long before his death. In the frontispiece he etched a quote, from Psalm 103:
But as for man, his days are like the grass,
or as the flower of the field.
The Wind blows and he is gone,
And his place never sees him, anymore.
Indeed, our lives do pass swiftly. I often wonder of the many men who once lived in my old rectory, this place that never sees them anymore. One day I will be swept from here, a distant memory in some old pictures in the archive.
There are some other painfully beautiful lines in Psalm 90 which say,
O Lord, you have been our refuge
from one generation to the next.
Before the mountains were born
or the earth or the world brought forth,
you are God, without beginning or end.
You turn men back to dust
and say: “Go back, sons of men.”
To your eyes a thousand years
are like yesterday, come and gone,
no more than a watch in the night.
You sweep men away like a dream,
like the grass which springs up in the morning.
In the morning it springs up and flowers:
by evening it withers and fades….
Our life is over like a sigh.
Our span is seventy years,
or eighty for those who are strong.
Make us know the shortness of our life
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Lord, relent! Is your anger for ever?
Show pity to your servants.
In the morning, fill us with your love;
we shall exult and rejoice all our days.
Give us joy to balance our affliction
for the years when we knew misfortune.
Show forth your work to your servants;
let your glory shine on their children.
Let the favor of the Lord be upon us.
Yes, lines like these swept across my mind as I viewed this beautiful video, a commercial really. From Infancy to 70 in just under a minute and a half.
As the commercial ends and she moves off, a golden sunset is casting its orange and gold rays. Here too I recalled the moving lines of an old hymn:
The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia.
Our years are seventy, or eighty for those who are strong. Or as the old Douay beautifully put it: The days of our years are threescore and ten. But if in the strong they be fourscore.
Oh, Monsignor! I feel privileged to read your blog. 🙂
I sat for many minutes after this lost in thoughts and memories, and a few hopes and anxieties. Thank you. Recalibrated my morning.
I will be 70 in a very few years. That psalm and my own video are in my head. Guess I’m not the only one to make those observations.
Good video and post. There really are people who have been photographed every day of their lives and there are some videos of them at youtube.
Wise is the man who as your father knows and thinks about the day when he will no longer be of this world. This article is a good source of reflexion, thank you Monsignor.
I am 70 and I remember every one of those moments and more, and will share this with my two daughters who are at the age of having children in school. Time is fleeting. Use every moment for the glory of God that you may enjoy the life God has given us.
Very nicely done, Monsignor. You caused me to stop and to meditate on those psalms.
Well, I’m close to the point of reaching my four score years.
Only yesterday I quoted some Shakespeare which I learned at school when I was twelve. I quote from memory:-
“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps on this petty pace from day to day ’til the last syllable of recorded time. All our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out! out! brief candle. Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
It’s from Macbeth, if you were wondering. It was a set book which we had to read for English Literature. Just think, it represents 67 years of memory for me. I have never forgotten it.
Shakespeare has Marc Antony saying: “The good is oft’ interred with their bones; but the evil lives on after them.”
May the Lord inspire us to keep our final end in view in the decisions we make. BTW, my 80th birthday was months ago.
TeaPot562
Your respondents seem to get older with each reply — by sheer coincidence today happens to be my 85th birthday and I concur with all of the respondents’ comments.
Happy birthday! 🙂
I’ll be 69 in one month and Psalm 90 has been in my thoughts for great moments of meditation when it cycles through the Office. Your post and the embedded video is a great gift us as always–, wise is the man/woman who reflects on those beautiful prayers we call the Psalms. Would have loved to know your Dad, but have settled for his wonderful son and the many posts of yours that have so carried my spirit and ministry….peace always, Deacon Al
That was nice. Thanks