Time (Kairos vs Chronos)
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“Our…everyday experiences of time…have been integrated into liturgical time, in order to express and signify God's life in us and our life in Him. Time - day and night, spring, summer, autumn and winter-has acquired a new significance, a new solemnity, a new urgency. Each day has the possibility to be a day of grace and each year to be a year of the Lord….each day and year can be the fitting and decisive moment (kairos) both to remember God and all that He did and continues to do for us, and to anticipate with joy the riches that He has prepared for us who love Him (2 Cor. 2:9). The liturgical cycle, which moves on four interrelated planes - the day, the week, the month, the year - incorporates us into the mystery of Christ, in order to transform the time (chronos) in which we live and act into the decisive time (kairos) of our salvation. Each day becomes an image of our whole existence. The ways by which we organize and utilize each day, and the priorities around which it is oriented, are the telling signs of the quality of each individual life. For a Christian each day can and must be a shared existence with eternity, with Christ…” (Rev. Alciviadis C. Calivas, Th.D.)
“Living year in and year out with a liturgical calendar…there is a freedom of sorts from the tyranny of your own one-sidedness. The liturgical calendar of the Church inevitably takes you through the whole story of salvation – in a manner that simply requires a year to be unfolded. On the other hand, this same liturgical calendar, particularly as it is manifest in the Orthodox Church, does not unfold the story of our salvation in a manner that is merely historical. Such an unfolding would simply order the events of our salvation along a timeline and place them one after another. The inner relationships between each event would be lost – or would simply be seen as governed by time. Instead, the liturgical life reveals an understanding in which time as a succession of things (chronos) is repeatedly overturned. Instead events are placed in such a way that their critical content (time as kairos) is revealed.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“C. S. Lewis…says that we usually regard time as our own. We start our day with the curious assumption that we are the lawful possessors of an upcoming twenty-four hours. With that hazardous assumption we then plot a matrix for our day, filling in time slots with tasks or restful moments. We might hope that we are managing our time in a way that will somehow please God. But when we begin with the assumption that time is ours, inconveniences and unexpected interruptions become intrusions into “my time.” By contrast, we can begin with the assertion that time is not our own. Time belongs to the Lord and He has a plan for time that He desires us to accept for our own peace and joy.” (Albert Rossi, PhD and Julia Wickes, MA)
“The New Testament uses two different Greek words that get translated into English as time. Chronos, as in chronological, linear time, seconds, minutes, hours, days etc.; and Kairos to mean the appointed time for something to occur. When Christ spoke of the time being fulfilled He used Kairos. It means God’s time or timing versus Chronos, our experience and orientation to time. Christ’s is reminding us we are stewards of time, not owners. All time is God’s time. It’s not ours though we act like it is. If we can embrace and live this understanding it is liberating and is a practical way to participate in the kingdom. I have found it to be wonderfully freeing to get up each day, have a to-do-list and plan for what I want to accomplish, but then receiving whatever that day offers, even when it disrupts my agenda. The importance of this to the kingdom is how this orients us to other people.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)
“ ‘Kairos’ means the time that we dedicate to our standing in the presence of God, and the blessing of this ‘kairos’ is that it prepares us, it changes our state.” (Archimandrite Peter)
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