Sacred Signs
by Romano Guardini

MIDDAY

In the morning we have a lively and agreeable sense that life is

starting and is on the increase; then obstacles arise and we are

slowed up. By noon for a short while we seem to stand quite

still. A little later our sense of life declines; we grow weary,

recover a little, and then subside into the quiescence of night.

Half way between the rising and the setting sun, when the day is

at its height, comes a breathing space, a brief and wonderful

moment. The future is not pressing and we do not look ahead; the

day is not yet declining and we do not look back. It is a pause,

but not of weariness; our strength and energy are still at the

full.

For noonday is the pure present. It looks beyond itself, hut not

into space or time. It looks upon eternity.

Noon is a profound moment. In the stir and extroversion of a city

it passes unperceived. But in the country, among cornfields and

quiet pastures, when the horizon is glowing with heat, we

perceive what a deep moment it is. We stand still and time falls

away. Eternity confronts us. Every hour reminds us of eternity;

but noon is its close neighbor. Time waits and holds its peace.

The day is at the full and time is the pure present.

The day being at its height and eternity close by, let us attend

to it and give it entrance. In the distance the Angelus, breaking

the noontide silence, reminds us of our redemption. "In the

beginning was the Word and the Word was with God.... The angel of

the Lord brought the message to Mary, and she conceived of the

Holy Ghost. Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me

according to thy will...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among

us."

At the noon hour of man's day, in the fulness of time, a member

of the human race, on whom this fulness had come, stood and

waited. Mary did not hurry to meet it. She looked neither before

or after. The fulness of time, the simple present, the moment

that gives entrance to eternity, was upon her. She waited.

Eternity leaned over; the angel spoke, and the Eternal Word took

flesh in her pure bosom.

Now in our day the Angelus proclaims the mystery. Each noonday,

for each Christian soul, the noonday of mankind is again present.

At every moment of time the fulness of time is audible. At all

times our life is close neighbor to eternity. We should always

hold ourselves in that quietude that attends upon and is open to

eternity. But since the noise of living is so loud, let us pause

at least at noon, at the hour the church has sanctified, and set

aside the business we are engaged in, and stand in silence and

listen to the angel of the Lord proclaiming that "while the earth

lay in deepest silence the Eternal Lord leapt down from his royal

throne"--then into the course of history for that once only, but

since then at every moment into the human soul.