Cedric Pisegna - Make the Most of Your Time (01/23/2026)
Welcome to «Live with Passion,» I’m Father Cedric Pisegna. I’m so grateful that you tuned into the program. I want to share with you from Ecclesiastes chapter 3, you’ve all heard this, «For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. Time to be born, time to die, a time to plant, and a time to pluck up. A time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh». What is the most precious gift that God gives us? Is it money or relationships? You might think about your own body as the precious gift or the job that you have.
Well, those are all good things, and they are a gift, I believe, as you might know from that reading, the most precious gift that God gives us is the gift of time. Time is precious. Talk to somebody on death row, and they’ll tell you how precious it is. Talk to somebody that has pancreatic cancer and has been given three months to live or visit elderly in a nursing home and they’ll clarify exactly what it means to have time and how precious it is. The most precious gift is time, and it passes quickly. It seems to me that the older I get, the quicker it goes by. One of our priests is 85 years old, and I saw him recently, and he goes, «How did I get here»? And he was talkin' about 85 years old. It happened, it’s like being in a time machine, and all of sudden you’re thrust into the future. That’s exactly what it seems like. Time is tricky, it’s slippery, it moves so fast.
Now, we’re all familiar with the concept of time. We wear watches to tell the time, clock’s tick, bells chime. We have a place in New York called Time Square, and on New Year’s Day, the ball drops and thousands of people cheer. We measure time, seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, and we have appointment calendars. Even on our iPhone, we can tell time on calendars and different things. We have songs about time. I remember Al Stewart came out with a song, «Time Passages». Amy Grant, one of my favorite singers, «Takes a little time sometimes». «Time is on our side».
Pink Floyd had a song about time where they just talk about time, but they showed clock’s ticking and bells chiming, that was part of the music. Time, the Moody Blues, «Time waits for no one, no, not even you». And we even have a Time Magazine we’re all familiar with. Ironically, it’s outdated by the time you get it. That’s why many newspapers are going out of business, because of the internet. We also have movies, movies like «Back To the Future». That was one of my favorites, it was a trilogy, and Peggy Sue got married. Was a good movie like that, HG Wells, «Time Machine». Fascinated by time travel, and we have something called… on televisions, many televisions have DVRs. DVRs, I call them time redeemers.
When I watch golf, I don’t like to watch it live. I usually give it an hour or so and then I can cut out the commercials very quickly, and if I need to go get up and get a drink or get some food, I can pause it. It’s like time stands still. DVRs, Digital Video Recorder, amazing. And we have sayings about time. Time will tell. Time heals. Time is money. Time waits for no one. Time flies. We have proverbs like a stitch in time saves nine. There’s no time like the present. We’re very aware of time. We can measure it, we have music about it, we have movies about it, we have songs about it, and then I think about religious people and philosophers and scientists like Albert Einstein and this quantum physics. Try to get a grasp on exactly what is the nature of time, how do we grasp it?
And if you want to get into all that, you can endlessly try to get lost in the philosophy of what time is, but to me, rather than talk about the nature of what time is, like quantum physics and Albert Einstein and some scientists and religious philosophers, I think it’s the meaning of time that’s most important. I said, the purpose of time. We can try to figure out the nature, but it’s the meaning that I want to talk about. Meaning is so important. In business terminologies, we say time is money, but for us time is meaning. Two basic ways of looking at time, number one, chronologically. We’ve heard of chronos time. That’s a Greek word, chronos, that means the measurement of time. We’re very familiar with it, we have it, it’s logical, it’s black and white.
I notice that time is sequential. Like, on a clock it goes forward logically. It’s also simultaneous. Everybody in the world, and there’s almost 8 billion people in the world, that’s a lot of people, everybody in the world at one in the same time is doing an activity. People are sleeping, people are filming, people are having sports, it’s amazing. On Saturday mornings, there’s all these college football games going on at the same time. You can have a field day on television just flipping around, and it all happens simultaneously. And then time is episodical. What I mean by that is that you go from episode to episode. For example, this morning I woke up, took a shower, ate breakfast, that was an episode.
Then I got into a car, that’s another episode, driving here. Then I preach and teach, that’s an episode. Then I’ll be driving, time is episodical. We go through all these different episodes in the course of our day. That’s one way of looking at time, but there’s something called kairos time. Kairos time is opportune time, opportunistic time. The conditions are right for a new opportunity, and what do I mean by that? Jesus comes into Galilee after his time in the desert, remember, he spent 40 days, 40 nights in the desert. Comes into Galilee, and what does he say? He says the time is fulfilled. Now he wasn’t talking about so much chronos time, he was saying, now is your opportunity, now is your time, now is the moment for you to make a move. That’s how I tie it Into New Year’s Day.
New Year’s Day is about new beginnings, it’s about a new opportunity, it’s about a new chance in your life. People make resolutions, they say, I’m going to change, they say that it’s gonna be different this year. Last year wasn’t so good, this is gonna be my best year, yet. And there’s something opportune about New Year’s. And in the Catholic Church, we have different seasons. For example, the season of Lent is an opportune time, and that’s when we read that reading from Mark Chapter 1, verse 15, where Jesus comes into Galilee and he says, «The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the good news». He was calling people to change, and he’s saying that this is a moment of grace for you, this is a moment of change, this is a moment of God’s help where things can be different.
No matter what you’re going through in your life right now, you may feel stuck, you may have some bad habits, you may be addicted, things aren’t happening for you, this, right now, as you’re watching this program is kairos time. Yes, we can measure time. It’s sequential, it’s simultaneous, it’s episodical, we know all that. We have Time Magazine, but what about the mystical nature of time? What about the reason, the purpose, the meaning of time? That’s what I want to get in touch with, and that’s what I want you to know all about. Whatever you are going through at this moment right now, it’s an opportune moment. «The time is fulfilled,» Jesus said when he went into the synagogue, the synagogue at Nazareth. He said, «The time is fulfilled, the spirit of the Lord is upon me,» and he said, «This is fulfilled in your hearing». Time has a fulfillment and opportunistic moment, and that moment is for you right now as you’re watching this program.
Jesus was inaugurating in his ministry something fresh, something new, something revolutionary. All the prophets had predicted it that it was going to happen in the future. The people were waiting for the Messiah, and when Jesus inaugurated it, some accepted it, and others didn’t. Paul the Apostle put it this way when he writes the Corinthians, he said, «Now is the acceptable time. Today is the day of salvation». In the Catholic Church, we have that read on Ash Wednesday. As I said, the beginning of Lent is this inauguration of this mystical, new moment of grace. Lent is a season of grace. Advent is similar when we talk about time, we talk about the Second Coming of Jesus and getting ready for it, and that’s the purpose of time, isn’t it? It’s to grasp the moment, to make the most of our time because we don’t know how much we have and to really bear fruit.
This series is called, «Be Fruitful». Bear fruit, and I’ll talk about that more as I go on here. It’s time that I’m interested in. Paul, Jesus, the prophets, they all talk about time. Now, God is somehow beyond time. We’ll get a little philosophical here for a moment. It says in 2 Peter, «One day is as a thousand years to God, and a thousand years like a day,» wow. And then right after that, and this is what I want you to get, 2 Peter 3:9, «The Lord is not slow regarding his promise, but is forbearing towards you, not wishing that you should perish, but come to repentance». I hope you got that. It’s simply saying this, that some people think that there’s no God because when they do bad things, nothing happens, where this says that God isn’t slow, God is giving you time to change. People interpret that as, there is no God, but it’s totally the opposite of that. God is being merciful.
Please understand, God is patient. Go to the National Parks sometimes, look at the Grand Canyon. I remember goin' to Arches National Park, it takes millions of years for those arches to form. God is very patient. Before the world began he had you in mind. Fourteen billion years, that is a long time. God is patient, he wants us to come to repentance, to change, to develop our potential, to bear fruit. Jesus put it this way, told a parable, Jesus speaks in parables, tells stories, it’s a great way to get people to listen, he said, there was a landowner one time who planted a fig tree and it didn’t bear fruit. And he waited, he waited, he was patient for three years, and that fig tree still didn’t bear any fruit.
Finally, he told the gardener, he said, look, I have waited for three years for this fig tree to bear fruit, nothing has happened. He said, cut it down. The gardener begged for mercy. He said, wait, let’s give it a chance. That’s exactly what Jesus, our great high priest who Intercedes for us, does. He intercede, he prays for us, he begs God on our behalf. Abraham did the same thing for Sodom and Gomorrah. He interceded for them. He said, «What if there’s only 50 righteous people, will you still save them? Will you destroy it»? «No, for 50 I’ll let it go». «What if there’s only 10 people? You still destroy it»? «No, I won’t destroy it».
And that’s what a priest does, he intercedes to God for people. That’s what I do for you, that’s what Jesus does for us. He is our great high priest, he intercedes for God to give us time to change, and sooner or later, it’s gonna be too late. So, there’s a warning in this. But anyway, back to the fig tree, the gardener said, let me put some manure on it and cut around it dig around it. Give it another year, give it another year. Jesus pleads for you to have more time, to change, to develop, to grow.
And then he said, if it doesn’t bear fruit, then cut it down. My series, this series is all about bearing fruit. And I talk about bearing fruit in terms of your relationship with God, that’s the first place where you bear fruit, coming to eternal life, you bear fruit that way, developing in virtue, that’s being fruit bearing, and then realizing your potential. Now, we don’t bear strawberries and bananas and apples and things like that, we bear the fruit of the Spirit, which is patience, and kindness, and gentleness, and love, and peace, and joy. That’s the fruit that God wants from us, all those things. And he’s giving us time to develop. Fruit ripens, it takes time for fruit to ripen, and God understands that.
However, if you’re not willing to grow and to become, then sooner or later you are going to be cut down. There’s no other way to put it, this is a warning. All throughout the Bible there’s warnings. Advent, the season of Advent is a warning. Lent is a time where we have time, New Year’s is a new beginning, but there will come a time if you do not turn, if you do not give your life to God, if you do not seek to bear fruit, there will be a time where you will be cut down. All you have to do is look in the scriptures at what has happened to people that have not repented. Look at Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham pleaded for them, but they still didn’t listen, and they were cut down.
Time, here’s my definition, time is the fabric God gives us to become, to bear fruit. A butterfly needs time to be transformed. A photo needs time to be developed. Wine needs time to mature. Fruit needs time to ripen. A seed needs time to grow and break open and become. In the same way, we need time. In the church year, we are given seasons, as I talked about. Advent, Lent, Easter, Christmas, Ordinary Time, if you’re a Catholic, and in these seasons, especially Advent, there’s some key words such as, wake up, be alert, be sober, be on guard, and don’t let the day catch you unaware.
See, «Our salvation is closer now than when we first accepted the faith,» that’s one of my favorite scriptures. When you’re in the program and loving God and journeying forward, time is on your side. You’re making the most of your time, you’re bearing fruit, you’re getting ready, and salvation is closer than when we first accepted the faith. But for others, time is their enemy, it’s working against them. They don’t know where they’re going. I remember there was a song by Chicago years ago, «Does Anybody Know What Time It Is»? Jesus knows what time it is, and the time is now. It’s your kairos time, it’s your time to make a move. New Year’s is about new beginnings, and so is the gospel. It’s about, no matter what your past has been, about something fresh, about something new. No matter how stuck you seem, no matter how in the mock you are, you can move and go forward.
That’s the purpose of these programs, to help you to keep moving, to change, to progress. Long ago, God told me, «Cedric, I’m not after perfection, I’m after progression». The Christian discipleship journey is called the pilgrimage. It’s a journey of faith, it’s a movement, and God gives us time to do all these things. Let’s talk more about time, the purpose of time which is so, so important. Time will be on our side if we live with purpose. The Bible gives us these tips, live purposely, have meaning in your life. For example, have a dream and a vision, work toward it. I love what it says in Philippians, «Work out your salvation with fear and trembling». Yeah, we’re saved by grace, but we still got to do good deeds and accomplish great works.
People say to me, Father Cedric, you’ve written 25 books, that’s something. Where do you find the time to do that? And I always tell them, «I gotta tell ya, I don’t find the time, it doesn’t just magically happen. I have good habits and I make the time, especially in the morning». I have a habit where from about 8:30 after we celebrate mass together, 8:30 to about 11, 11:30, for about three hours, where I disciplined myself. That’s called time management. You create habits and I write books. And I’m so glad that I did, because… and that I continue to do so, and same thing with creating scripts for television. I’m so glad that I do that because that’s my way to reach out to people, but in order to do it, I have to sacrifice, create good habits, and have time management.
For some people time is like they’re in a boat on a river and the river is just taking them down. «Time flows like a river,» that was a song I heard one time. But for other people, with time management you have a rudder. Yeah, you’re flowing downstream, but you’re steering the ship, and that’s what discipline does, that’s what time management does. It helps you to steer the ship, it’s very important. You have to manage your time. God gives the same amount of time to everybody, but not everybody has the discipline and the time management to steer the ship.
Some people just go along with the flow, and they really don’t have much to show for it, where other people control the flow, if you will. And time management is important, if you’re in business, you know that. Then I wanted to tell you, enjoy your life. Time isn’t just about being hard and determined and facing your challenges, although we have to do all that. I really believe that God wants us to enjoy our life. John 10:10, «I have come that you may have life and life abundant». «My joy may be in you,» Jesus said.
It’s hard to imagine how tragic a place the world is when you’re on a golf course, and it’s the same with bowling and some of you like to dance and some of you like to do artistry and painting, and whatever your pleasure is, take time to enjoy your life. Then, very quickly, be fruitful. I’m talking about the meaning of time. Fruit develops given time, it ripens. I heard about a priest one time who was changing his tire and a car came too close to him and hit him. He was flying through the air, and he had this thought, how have you loved?
Wow, that’s fruitfulness. Loving people, forgiving people, realizing your potential, that’s the purpose of time, and that’s why God is giving us time. Heard about a tombstone, and on the tombstone there’s always a date, person was born, there’s the date that you die, the year, and right in between us that little dash. The dash represents what you did with that time in between your birth date and your death date, and how are you living your dash? Are you living with purpose? Enjoying your life meaning? Are you having a new start? Changing? Growing? Giving yourself to God? Time isn’t something that we philosophically try to understand the nature of it. It’s the meaning of time, the purpose of time. Time flies, therefore, make the most of it, and don’t just live, live with passion.