The current BBC series The Human Body has finally allowed us to know what we spend most of our time doing. In vain, do we try to use up every wakeful moment doing something 'meaningful' or bother about a really creative activity for a Bank Holiday. The reality is quite different. Given an average life span we actually spend 12 months talking, 2 weeks kissing, 3 and a half years eating, 6 months on the lavatory and 2 and a half years on the telephone.

Some of these statistics seem very modest. If we live to be 75 it seems difficult to believe we only talk for one-seventy fifth of it (at least in certain cases I could mention some of them being priests). Many harassed parents of teenage children would also maintain that the telephone-talking allowance is completely used up between the ages of 14 and 17.

If you would like further depressing information, a baby drools 32 gallons of saliva in the first twelve months and crawls 93 miles by the age of 2 (this will compensate for the remaining static years spent in front of the video or computer screen). And to tell you what respectable Newsletters would not we make love to a total of 5 people 2,580 times [or possibly the other way round; it is not clear]. In fact as Catholics are chaste and priests don't, the overall average must be higher still.

All this time gone, all this activity, without our awareness! As an old hymn says: Days and moments quickly flying, blend the living with the dead.

If we are not be depressed by the sheer extent of 'basic living we must remember one thing: it is all being sustained by the action of the Holy Spirit. Even the most alert spiritual mind can only be partly aware of the action of the Spirit in life - and that during the hours of wakefulness.

No wonder the Holy Spirit is called the Advocate. Ceaselessly night and day it 'puts our case' before the Father. In the words of Jacob Astley's prayer: Lord, you know how busy I must be this day; if I forget you, do not forget me. When at Pentecost we pray 'Come, Holy Spirit' we are praying to acknowledge the Holy Spirit's work more gratefully and when we cannot acknowledge it to trust in it more fully.