Almost everyone you meet has an observation that goes like this: where is all our time going. By the time you read this editorial, just about six months of the year 2005 will have gone by. Still we will be asking the same question, not only where is our time going, but where is our life going.

One of the factors in life that we take for granted is that we always think we have more time than we actually do. God is very democratic. He gives us 1440 minutes per day. We can use that time profitability or we can waste it. The choice is ours. The only one we can accuse of wasting time is ourselves. When you think of the fact that the earth is estimated to over 13 billion years of age, the amount of time we spend on this earth is just a blink of an eye. We might have 70, 80 or 90 years with all of the new medications that we take to prolong life. But in the final analysis, we are accountable to God for how we use the time God gives us on this earth. In the language of the Gospel, we know that God has given us five talents, two talents or one talent. In other words that is a measure of ability to do on this earth what God wants us to do. Most us will never climb Mount Everest, most of us will never find a cure for cancer, but all of us have an opportunity on an hourly basis to bring the Gospel of Christ to others by the kindness of our speech, by the charity of our speech and by the compassion of our acts.

Mother Teresa summed it up beautifully when she said, "we are all asked to do little things extraordinarily well'. That simply is a reminder to all of us that member of your family who needs consoling words, that person in your office who needs a comforting thought, that neighbor on the street who has had a tragedy, all can be helped if you use your time profitably. When you analyze it, what does it cost you to offer a word of charity to someone in need? What does it cost you to offer a helping hand to someone in need of your compassion? Those qualities enable us to use time profitably. We can watch television as a family on a average of between 25 and 30 hours a week. We can get caught up in traffic jams that most kill 50 hours a year. We spend so much time waiting in line at the bank or post office and then when you add how much time we use in sleeping and eating you realize our time is not as free as we think it is.

Each hour is a precious gift from God that we can share with others by imitating the conduct of Christ. He taught his apostles to spread love and charity all throughout the world. He taught them to remember, by this, namely love, the world will remember you. Our greatest challenge on this earth is not whether we climb Mount Everest or find a cure for cancer, our greatest challenge is to be Christ-like to others and that challenge is met by the way we use the time that God has given us. These 1440 minutes that God has given you today can help you become more Christ-like and bring Christ to others and really that is one of the reasons why we are on earth. Use your time profitably.