New Year’s 2012

New Year’s fireworks

What’s the New Year’s equivalent of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas?  I’d qualify.

By way of disclaimer, I do enjoy much of this holiday … a paid holiday for many workers … time with family and friends that’s not as frantic as Christmas … the sense of newness and being able to begin again … honoring Mary and her life-long fidelity to the designs of Providence.

But on the other hand — the “grinchy hand,” it’s getting harder and harder to stay awake until the stroke of midnight in order to go outside to bang spoons against pans (an old Chicago style way to ring in the New Year).  Too, long term resolutions aren’t my most successful endeavors. How many times can I resolve to eat less and more healthily, exercise regularly, and stop “wool gathering” during my quiet prayer times? Evidently not too many times because it’s been years since I’ve moved off these three. (They also are my stand-by for Lenten practices.) Then, on New Year’s Day, the end of vacation days looms and the return to life as normal plus the prospect of taking down all the Christmas decorations it took so long to put up. Woe is me …

Nonetheless, I do hope you have a wonderful New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day holiday! With you, I’ll concentrate on the sheer gift of time being given to us and the feeling of renewal and new energy that’s part and parcel of the holiday.

May Earth and all people know peace — that gift of Emmanuel that has proven so elusive over the centuries since the birth of Jesus. Let us be partners in the pursuit of peace for all people; let us be partners in ringing in the kin-dom of God.

Happy New Year! Happy 2012! Know you are in the prayer of the Sisters of Providence and especially in the prayer of

Sister Denise Wilkinson
General Superior