If man lives without the awareness of eternity, the past is nothing but time already lost, a chain of failures and wrong choices, while the present is almost non-existent, since before we can even define it, it has already passed. As for the future, it is uncertain and does not belong to man. His whole being is tormented by a state of prolonged, even endless, anguish. And yet the time he has been given on earth is the time of the Lord’s goodness, ‘the accepted time’, during which His lovingkindness is revealed before us as a prelude to eternity. By its very nature, liturgical time is bathed in the light of eternity.