Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Dear Creator Family,

As I think about the coming New Year, I trace the line of my life through the past one. It surprised me, as I sat thinking about this, that my line waivered so and in some places disappeared. Well, it didn’t really disappear, rather it is in those places that I have obscured it to myself because I don’t want to see.
I know, from the many conversations I have had in my lifetime, that many people, Christians among them, simply don’t believe in Adam and Eve, the apple and the whole “garden thing.” But obscuring the Creation story gives us license to ignore the details, and ignoring the details sets us free in blissful ignorance. So many changes flowed from that first bite, in that first moment. Changes we read about in Holy Scripture and know about deep in our being, were set in motion as ripples in the flow of time and heartbeats in the span of a life.
As people of faith, we do not run from such things. Knowing that Jesus paid our debt and that the Holy Spirit dwells in us, we are already free to be hands and feet of Christ in the world. We are called by that shinning light on the hill, led by hope and bolstered by divine love.
I have often said that we, human beings, need an excuse to act, to grow, and to change. What better excuse do we have than the turn of the year? Metaphorically, the new year is the harbinger of reform or repose. Rationally, it is an empty bucket to which we can add our individuality.
I offer you, my Creator Family, the following prayers and reflection, with hope and love. May these words inspire and enfold you. May they lift you to resolve and open you to self-emptying. I pray for you all that these words utter and more; the presence of God made manifest in your spirit and soul.  
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Prayerfully,

Fr. Bill†

 I am the New Year.
I am the New Year. I am an unspoiled page in your book of time.
I am your next chance at the art of living.
I am your opportunity to practice what you have learned about life during the last twelve months.
All that you sought and didn't find is hidden in me, waiting for you to search it again but with more determination.
All the good that you tried for and didn't achieve is mine to grant when you have fewer conflicting desires.
All that you dreamed but didn't dare to do, all that you hoped but did not will, all the faith that you claimed but did not have-these slumber lightly, waiting to be awakened by the touch of a strong purpose.
I am your opportunity to renew your allegiance to Him who said, "Behold, I make all things new."
- Author Unknown
Pondering in Our Hearts - A Christian Reflection
Early on in his Gospel, Luke twice mentions Mary doing something extraordinary, namely, pondering something "in her heart." The first occasion is after the departure of the shepherds at the Nativity; the second is when she and Joseph discover the child Jesus speaking with the Temple elders. Luke's phrase is telling. For Mary to "ponder" something "in her heart," is not simply for her to remember the details or get her facts straight. Rather, it seems more a way to take in something in its totality and to let it sink down deep, into the heart, the place where it can change you.
Were we to be like Mary, how might we ponder in our hearts what we ourselves have seen and heard this past Christmas season so that, before it closes, we might learn something more from it than we did the first time through? Something which might just sink down deep and somehow change us.

Perhaps these questions might be of some help.
What was the best, the greatest, gift you received this year - not the brightest gift or the shiniest or the fastest or the most expensive gift, but the best gift, the greatest gift? Who gave it to you? And do they even know they did?

What was the best gift you gave this year, one that may have cost you a little or one which may have cost you a lot. And the little or a lot that it might have cost you might not have been money at all.

If there was something you did in the last several weeks which was just what someone else needed, just when they needed it, just what was it?

If there was one time when all your troubles, your cares and worries, seemed to you far, far away - what was that time? And what chased your troubles away?

If there was one glance you had of someone else that allowed you to see them fresh, as if for the very first time, yet see them as well radiant with all that they mean to you - what was that time? And who was that person?

Was there ever a time - perhaps in a crowd and surrounded with people or perhaps by yourself - that it struck you that you are a lucky, lucky person? What was that time? Who were those people around you, if people there were? And what seems to have brought that feeling on?

If you said one thing exactly right, exactly true and straight from your heart, just what exactly did you say? And to whom did you say it? And why?

If within the last few weeks you brushed a tear from your eye secretly so that no one else could see it, why did that tear come? And what did that tear mean?

When do you feel the proudest? The happiest? The most content? Indeed, the most yourself?

If you could look back over the many, many moments of this tender season now ending and pick out one moment from among them all - just one -pick the one where somehow you knew in your heart that it was all true: the angels indeed did sing, the shepherds indeed did worship, the kings indeed did bring their gifts and bow low - and all of this because at that one moment you felt almost held aloft by kind and mighty hands; and if you could take that one moment and hold it in your heart forever, take it out and gaze upon it from time to time as if to look upon a kind of snow globe, just what would that one moment be?
- Fr. Michael Graham, S.J.​

Drenched in Holiness
Dear God,
On this day I ask You to grant this request,
May I know who I am and what I am,
Every moment of every day.
May I be a catalyst for light and love,
And bring inspiration to those whose eyes I meet.
May I have the strength to stand tall in the face of conflict,
And the courage to speak my voice, even when I'm scared.
May I have the humility to follow my heart,
And the passion to live my soul's desires.
May I seek to know the highest truth
And dismiss the gravitational pull of my lower self.
May I embrace and love the totality of myself,
My darkness as well as my light.
May I be brave enough to hear my heart,
To let it soften so that I may gracefully
Choose faith over fear.
Today is my day to surrender anything that stands
Between the sacredness of my humanity and my divinity.
May I be drenched in my Holiness
And engulfed by Your love.
May all else melt away.
And so it is.
- Debbie Ford