Grace Notes: Time and eternity at Mass

by SISTER ANNE MARIE WALSH, SOLT
Columnist

My dad was surprised to discover that after my mom’s death (whom he missed terribly), he experienced her presence every time he went to Mass. The first time it happened, he was awed by it and wanted to talk about it. 

Dad and Mom were married for 57 years and knew each other several years before they married. Dad said after she died, he’d be out walking and see something and say:  " Oh, I have to tell Mom about that,” and then remember as he came into the house she wasn’t there anymore. She wasn’t there, but he unexpectedly discovered her somewhere else.

This was not just a manifestation of never-before-felt emotions, or the deep pain of a man missing the person who went through life with him, side by side, for over 60 years.  It is a reality that Pope Leo has taken up, like many of his predecessors, especially Benedict XVI, in making the Liturgy- what happens there and how we are meant to participate - a part of his instructions for God’s people since February of this year, 2026. 

My mother no longer exists in earthly time, or Chronos as it is called. Chronos is historical time, and it is where we spend most of our life on earth.  It progresses from one point to the next. Once a moment is over, it is gone, never to be repeated in exactly the same way. It is relegated to the past, to memory. This kind of time is regulated by ticking clocks and deadlines, hopes for the future and either regrets or nostalgia generated by the past.

Except for somewhere around 60 minutes (or more if you are a daily Mass - goer) on a Sunday, we live our lives out in time, in Chronos. But as soon as we begin to celebrate Mass, we enter into a different kind of time. And this time, called Kairos, is very different from Chronos. 

Kairos is God’s eternal time. Kairos is the time we enter when we participate in the Divine Liturgy. Orthodox Christian theology explains that the Divine Liturgy breaks through linear, earthly time (Chronos) and enters into God's eternal time (Kairos).

A newly ordained deacon once told me that, during their formation, they were told not to wear watches while serving at the altar, acknowledging this shift into a different kind of time. 

How Kairos functions in the liturgy

The very first words spoken by the deacon to the priest before the service begins are: "It is time (Kairos) for the Lord to act." This officially signals that the congregation is stepping out of the ticking clock of the world and into the eternal present of God's kingdom.

The "Eternal Now": In the liturgy, past and future events are experienced as happening right now. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross, the Resurrection, and even Christ's future Second Coming are not just remembered as historical data; we actively participate in them in the present moment.

The liturgy, heaven on earth, becomes the literal intersection where heaven and earth meet. You are not waiting for a future heaven; you are stepping into eternal life during the service itself.

Again, the difference between Chronos and Liturgical Kairos could not be greater. In earthly Chronos, you sit in a church pew and look at your watch. You notice that 60 minutes have passed in the physical world. In Liturgical Kairos, for those 60 minutes, you stand alongside the saints and angels in an eternal liturgy with no beginning and no end.

When the liturgy concludes, you step back out into the ticking routine of Chronos, tasked with carrying the peace of Kairos back into your everyday life.

Kairos, or God’s time, also explains many things seen in the lives of the saints. Padre Pio, for instance, seemed able to stop or slow time down so he could pray many rosaries at once.

He also understood that because of God’s “eternal now,” one could still pray efficaciously for those who had died in the past, and especially for those who had died unprepared or under distressing states of mind, etc.  Padre Pio once indicated he was praying for his grandfather who had died many years earlier.

Many things are beyond the senses yet present nonetheless. Holiness and the capacity to see things in the light of faith, as the saints had to a high degree, enabled them to enter into divine mysteries and live something of the inner life of God, in which the Divine Mercy makes all things possible, including the fulfillment of the deepest desires of our hearts for the salvation of our loved ones, and for the conversion of the world.  

For reflection: 

1. Sacrosanctum Concilium says we sing "with all the warriors of the heavenly army." Who among the saints, or the loved ones you've lost, do you picture praying alongside you at Mass?

2. Think of a moment in your life when you lost all track of ordinary time — in prayer, in nature, listening to music, watching a sunset. What did that feel like? How was it different from "clock time"?

3. St. Cyril of Jerusalem said that in the Sanctus we join "the heavenly militia" already singing, rather than starting a new song. How does that change your posture going into that moment — from performing a hymn to joining one already underway?

4. The Sursum Corda — "Lift up your hearts" — comes right before the Sanctus. What tends to weigh your heart down at Mass, and what would it practically look like to lift it before that moment?

5. Ratzinger describes the liturgy as holding together past (the Cross), present (this Mass), and future (our own share in glory) in one act. Which of the three — past, present, or future — do you find easiest to enter into at Mass? Which is hardest, and why?

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