What to Expect in the Order of the Present Moment

What to Expect: Name, Purpose, Vow, Patron, Mission

The name alone—Order of the Present Moment—may seem out of order. Some may think it a nebulous name for a religious order. And perhaps it is; but this is a spiritual order, and the Spirit is described in Genesis as a mist. For those called to traditional religious orders or groups, the Order of the Present Moment carries no existing images or defining attributes. 

For all the others, however, the Order of the Present Moment is a name to which anyone can relate—anyone who can comprehend a moment in the present as an invitation to live fully in this present moment. Yes, the name is vague, and that is its refining truth and beauty. Besides, it is the name given by God for this Order, and that is reason enough to identify it.

The purpose of the Order of the Present Moment (OPM) is to love to learn to love God, to live all for God (omnia pro Deo) and thus to love and live for others and all that God Created, and to love and live for God's Holy Catholic Church—and to do so moment by moment, in each present moment, in this life and the next. 

And this, too, is the OPM Vow: to love God, to love all God's Creation, and to love His Church. This is essentially the greatest commandment given by Christ, so it is the essential vow of the Order of the Present Moment. What other vow could excel the fullness in grace of this vow?

The patron of the OPM is St. Joseph. Why? That is because the Lord said he is, on that Feast of St. Joseph. We can ponder how St. Joseph would qualify as a patron of such an order, and what comes to mind is his love of God, his living all for God, his love for others and all of God's creation, and his love of God's Church. For St. Joseph truly loved God's Church in the form of the Blessed Virgin Mary and in Christ, the Head of the Church. 

While this may seem out of sequence. Christ instituted the Church and sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and St. Joseph was not living on earth then. In the Order of the Present Moment, the moments can be likened to drops of water in the stream, river, or ocean, and they flow and intermingle, not in a line of droplets but as a fluid mass of droplets, with movement and spatial relationship not in any particular order. 

This, too, is how God's time is, for there is no set time with God, but rather all is His time—past, present, future—all one in His View, His Space. And that is one of the challenges within the Order of the Present Moment: to learn to view as God views, and to live in God's time, and in that, in God's order of present moments.

However, perhaps God said St. Joseph is the patron of the OPM because the question was asked on earth, in earth time, on the earth's Church date of St. Joseph's Feast. Perhaps the patron would be other saints on their earth Church dates of Church Feasts and Solemnities? For now we must assume that God chose St. Joseph as Patron of this Order, for the reasons that St. Joseph particularly lived as a humble man, and very much lived the pure purpose and vow of the Order of the Present Moment.

The mission of the OPM is to glorify God. That is simple enough. The various aspects and means of glory and glorification can unfold in creative and amazing ways, moment by moment. It will proceed from the living out of the Order of the Present Moment's vow. To glorify God emanates from the Order's very purpose, in unique, tangible--as well as mystical-- modalities.