TIME CHECK

Friday of the 23rd Week in Ordinary Time
Lk 6:39-42

“When I was a little boy” is now a long time ago. I still remember though something about “time”. During my childhood days, there were four ways for us to know what time of the day it was. The church bells tolled every six in the morning, twelve noon, and six in the evening. When they tolled at hours other than these three, we conclude that someone must have died and his remains were being blessed in the parish church. The siren would also sound every twelve noon. Radio programs would also tell us what time of the day it was. Aside from memorizing the regular schedules of radio dramas and other broadcasts, news on radio was every thirty minutes. And RPN 9 was the only television channel that flashed a digital clock concurrent with its broadcast hours. When the elders wanted to set their watches to the right time, they would ask us to check with channel 9. But before the radio and the television were invented, there already was the telephone. I read that people that time would call the telephone operator to know the exact time of the day. The Rev. Mark Link, S. J. once wrote this funny story to read but an important lesson to learn: “Before the era of radio and television, a telephone operator used to get a daily call requesting the exact time. She was always able to give it authoritatively. This was because she checked her watch daily when the town’s factory sounded its whistle at the end of each work day. “One day, however, her watch stopped and she told her mystery caller that she was waiting for the factory whistle. “She explained that she used it each day to check or set her watch. “There was silence. Then the caller said, ‘This is the factory. We always use your time to decide when to sound our whistle each day.’” When I was a little boy, there were instances when the church bells tolled slightly ahead of or late than the exact time of the day. The same happened with the siren. And the time from the radio and the television could also have been slow or fast. But who then could know? Everybody checked or set his watch using “their” time. Check your time. Check whom you follow. The blind following another blind is fatal. Jesus alone is worth following yesterday, today, and forever.