Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
Timing, as they say, is everything.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus directs the disciples not to share what Peter has figured out: that Jesus is the Christ. It’s too soon; the prophecies must yet be fulfilled.
We’re all familiar with the first reading from Ecclesiastes: a time to be born, a time to die; a time to kill, a time to heal; 
a time to mourn, a time to dance. But perhaps that familiarity prevents us from listening to what comes next: the writer’s paean to God, confident that whether we ever understand it or not, He has “made everything appropriate to its time.”
The rush of the fall and coming winter has already begun. You’ll find Christmas displays peeking through the Halloween retail offerings, and perhaps you’re already making your family’s Thanksgiving and New Year’s plans. Is all that “appropriate to its time”?
Maybe. Maybe it’s not always bad to live at breakneck speed. Maybe He has blessed some of us with so many ministry opportunities and so much to do in His name that warp speed is the only way to serve Him. Can you imagine Dorothy Day or Blessed Teresa of Calcutta or even Pope Francis listening when people advise them to slow down? We are here but a little while, and as the saying goes, we can sleep when we are dead, confident in the knowledge we did all we could for the Lord while we were here.
Timing, as they say, is everything.
