Sunday Reflections

On a liturgical note Canon Philip Gillespie I would say ‘Happy New Year’ but of course that would be wrong – as we all know, the beginning of the new Liturgical year was the first Sunday of Advent, 28 November. However, as the new civil year of 2022 begins on 1 January, it is quite legitimate to wish each other a continuation of blessing and happiness for the months ahead or, as Saint Aelred of Rievaux whose feast we keep on 12 January would bid us, a constant deepening of the invaluable gift of friendship –friendship with Christ at the heart of everything and then, in Him, a valuing and nurturing and nourishing of those friendships which support and strengthen us each day of our lives. One little custom which you may already keep is that of the blessing of our houses – and not just the bricks and mortar but, by extension, the households, which takes place on the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord (which this year is kept on Thursday 6 January). Custom has it that just as the Magi – traditionally known as Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar – give gifts to the new-born Christ, so we would ask that Christ’s blessing visit our homes with His gifts. Hence the letters CMB, written in chalk over the main doorway of the house. As well as being the first letter of the names of the three wise travellers, CMB could also stand for the Latin phrase Christus Mansionem Benedicat, meaning ‘Christ bless this house’. Often the current year would be added to the script, so that for 2022 we might have the following: 20 + C + M + B + 22 or CMB 2022. This is a simple way of marking the passing of the year and also making very evident our desire that we will continue to grow in our friendship with Christ through the coming months. ‘No medicine is more valuable, none more efficacious, none better suited to the cure of all our temporal ills than a friend to whom we may turn for consolation in time of trouble, and with whom we may share our happiness in time of joy.’

New Year resolutions don’t work for me. January seems the wrong time to make them. The Church’s year begins on the first Sunday of Advent. September is the start of the academic year. I find a sense of energy and enthusiasm in September. It’s a hangover from my time in school and seminary, an instinct reinforced by new clergy appointments which usually commence in September. Other people have their own new year. There’s the Jewish New Year on 25 September and the Chinese New Year on 1 February. The tax year begins on 6 April. The UK motor vehicle trade has two new years – 1 March and 1 September – when new registration plates give a boost to car sales. The real marker of the passage of time for me is my birthday. As a child, birthdays were proof that I was growing up, albeit too slowly. Birthdays now remind me that I am growing old, and they come too fast. I associate resolutions with Ash Wednesday when I ask myself, ‘What shall I do for Lent?’. Whatever I decide rarely survives beyond three or four weeks. After years of guilt I’ve learned that’s maybe the point of resolutions; breaking them. They undermine the view that the Christian life is a selfimprovement programme. Broken resolutions are the only way that grace can get leverage in my life. That only works if I have the humility to admit, ‘When I am weak, then I am strong’. The phrase ‘New Every Morning’ appeals to me. Several evangelical hymns use this phrase. It’s taken from the Book of Lamentations but is profoundly Christian. Each morning is a fresh start after the failures of yesterday. I’m a serial offender. That’s a feature of what we call sin. But it’s Easter Sunday every morning, whatever the date on the calendar.

Mgr John Devine OBE

It is the dawn of another new year, with the arrival of 2022. Sadly, the world has just spent yet another year in chaos. So what do we as Christians have to offer the world as we struggle with the wounds of Covid, the horror of Afghanistan, the scourge of famine and warfare? It seems to me that each year is the dawn again of a fresh hope, a reminder that God is with us in a new way. I have shared before that one of the words used in the Genesis stories is blessed or barak. The Hebrew understanding of blessed is far deeper than our understanding of the word. For the Hebrew, the blessing of God is like a shower of goodness that we are caught up in. This barak is the abundant life of God shared with humanity and with the whole of creation. Isn’t that fantastic? What we have is life to share with the world –abundant, freely given life. Is it any wonder that Julian of Norwich could say, ‘All will be well, and all manner of things will be well?’ She knew the barak of God, knew that life is always being poured out. The question we have to ask is: do we believe in the blessing of God, poured out, and if we do, how are we sharing this with others so that they too will know the heart of God? It is not a feeling or an emotional reality. It is a choice to know and understand the heart of God. If you know the heart of God, you will know that life is being poured out whatever state the world seems to be in, and you will choose to believe that, because of this, all will be well. I guess the question for all of us to reflect on is whether or not we will be people of hope this year or people who somehow think we know better than God. What we discover in the Scriptures is that in our own strength we cannot be people of hope. We will always walk away from God, trusting in ourselves and our own power and not in God’s abundant life. We will always fail to recognise the God who is everywhere and will choose the things that bring us death rather than life. If we have recognised the blessing of God, the barak of God, then we will recognise the call we are given to be people of hope in the world and share the barak of God with those around us by our willingness to live more simply for the sake of others. Can we hope in God in the midst of recession and warfare and disaster? Of course we can. This new year we can live in joyful hope because of the abiding blessing of God.

Father Chris Thomas