Remember the past with gratitude. Live the present with enthusiasm. Look forward to the future with confidence.
– St. John Paul II
The ending of one year and beginning another is usually a time of expectation, preparation and hope. A time of making resolutions, thinking about what the new year might hold, planning ways to improve some aspect of our life, hoping that the new year will bring with it many blessings and good things, entrusting the future to the loving Providence and Mercy of God.
The Church also celebrates January 1st as the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God, to whom we wish to consecrate the new year. This year, January 1st also marks the 54th World Day of Peace in which we pray that God’s peace may reign in the world and in hearts.
In order to embrace a new year with a spirit of confidence and peace, it is important to remember the past year with gratitude.
As every year, 2020 brought us many good things, but it was also a year filled with difficulties, challenges and sorrows – perhaps more than other years: world-wide pandemic, loss of loved ones, isolation, loss of jobs, major life changes…
Especially in the midst of times as trying as these, it is important to turn to God with gratitude for the good things He has given us in this year. Just as the stars shine more brightly at night, so too in particularly dark times we can see more clearly how many good things we have been given.
Perhaps this year has helped us to not take for granted the precious gift of being able to go to Mass, to receive Jesus in the Eucharist, to experience God’s forgiveness through the Sacrament of Confession; to know how important it is to spend time with those we love; the grace of seeking God’s will in daily circumstances.
These are only a few examples, but it is important for each of us to look back over the year and to count the blessings in our lives. Even the crosses and difficulties are blessings which have given us as an opportunity to grow and to entrust ourselves more to His Divine Providence.
If we place our confidence in the Savior that comes to us in the Child of Bethlehem, then we know that despite the difficulties that may lie ahead, our future is in His Hands and He will not fail to give us all that we need in order to live a holy life and to one day be with him in eternal peace and happiness.
We entrust this year to the hands of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Christ Child and our mother.
Prayer of St. John Henry Newman – March 7, 1848
God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.
Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He is about.
O Adonai, O Ruler of Israel, Thou that guidest Joseph like a flock, O Emmanuel, O Sapientia, I give myself to Thee. I trust Thee wholly. Thou art wiser than I—more loving to me than I myself. Deign to fulfil Thy high purposes in me whatever they be—work in and through me. I am born to serve Thee, to be Thine, to be Thy instrument. Let me be Thy blind instrument. I ask not to see—I ask not to know—I ask simply to be used.
