We live in time, and that means that the moment we are born we are already progressing toward our death. Of course, the majority of people do not think about death constantly. They are busy. They expect something from time. The one who is dating a girl expects that next Saturday he will see her. The one who takes his vacation next week thinks about Monday, when he will be free to leave. We always have those little “ends” which help us to forget about the ultimate end. We fill time with futile things that continually take our attention away from that end. And this is what philosophers and the great men of all ages, those who go to the depth of the human experience, discover when they come to the last question about existence. They discover that life is meaningless. Whether I die tomorrow or in thirty years, all I am trying to do, all that I am trying to be, is void of meaning because I disappear. So, the time of human existence is meaningless unless there is something somewhere that can overcome this meaninglessness.

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Alexander Schmemann, Liturgy and Life: Essays on Christian Development through Liturgical Experience (New York: Department of Religious Education Orthodox Church in America, 1993), 75.