One cartoon strip I follow in the Star Trib is Pickles. It features an elderly couple. In yesterday’s strip, the old man joins his wife on the couch. As he lies down on the couch and places his feet on his wife’s lap, he states, “I didn’t think I was going to make it to 2022.” His wife looks at his feet on her lap and responds, “Don’t be too sure of that.”
New Year Trepidation
I think that strip reflects a sentiment shared by many of us the past several years, especially so during this prolonged pandemic. We approach each new year with a great deal of apprehension and uncertainty, tinged with hope that it will not be as bad as the year we had just survived. I have found by experience, that entering a new year is a lot like carefully testing the ice before walking on a frozen lake. It is done very carefully with some trepidation and a plan if the ice does not support your weight.
The Carefree New Years of Youth
Now look at the picture above. That picture was taken 4 days after Ruthie and I got married in 1974. Ruthie’s BFF is Cheryl DuCharme. When we were younger, Rob and Cheryl and Ruth and I use to play 500, usually accompanied with a lot of rum and coke. On this December 31st, Rob and Cheryl were over at our apartment on Larpenteur Ave and we played 500 far into the night. We were both newly married couples and were eagerly anticipating long and happy lives with our spouses far into the future. There was no trepidation or apprehension about entering another new year. Totally unaware of the challenges that awaited us in the future, without any hesitation we jumped feet first into the waters of the New Year.
What did the future provide for us in the New Year of 1975? For Ruthie, it was a little bit of a hangover from the rum and coke she had consumed. For me, it was leading the music for the morning Masses at Maternity of Mary on Dale Street, St Paul (about six blocks away … I made sure not to drink a whole lot at our 500 games, knowing full well that I had to be up early to do music at the Masses). By February, Ruthie would be pregnant with our first child, Andy. I would get a K-12 vocal/general music teaching position in two forgotten town on the Southwestern Minnesota prairie, with Ruthie working in a small little hospital. Rob and Cheryl would continue to live their lives in the Midway area of St Paul, Rob learning to cope with his gradual visual degeneration. We would learn that not all adventures were going to be exciting and wanted, but some were very unwanted and very challenging.
January 1, the Holy Day
For the longest time, January 1 was a holy day of obligation in the Catholic Church, It was the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus, albeit, not a very pleasant experience for the infant Jesus … curious why it was celebrated all those years. After Vatican II, Pope Paul VI called the holy day, World Peace Day. Then Pope John Paul II renamed it Mary, Mother of God (as if Mary needed any more feast days in the calendar year. I think her feast days outnumber those of Jesus … I will have to count to make sure).
As I wrote yesterday in a video card sent to friends, this year, I will put aside the Mary, Mother of God designation of the Day and return to that of World Day for Peace. The very first reading for this day is that wonderful blessing from the Book of Numbers, “May God bless you and keep you. May God’s face shine upon you …” Even the Gospel account for today from Luke’s infant narrative of the worship of the shepherds, and Mary reflecting on the events that transpired at the birth of Jesus is filled with a sense of peace.
We must remember that Judea was a war torn land, occupied by a Roman army. Judeans were coerced by the Roman Emperor to travel to their places of birth to register for a Roman census. Joseph and Mary had to navigate some pretty hostile land to make it from Nazareth to Bethlehem, at a time when Mary was 9 months pregnant. Judea was not a place of peace at the time of Jesus’ birth. And, as Matthew’s infant narrative will relate, King Herod, a puppet king of Rome, would send his military into Bethlehem to slaughter all male children, a slaughter that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph narrowly escaped, followed by another dangerous journey to Egypt as war refugees.
The Psalmist of Psalm 23 does not tell us that we will be without violence in our lives, or be without great hardships. He states very clearly that we all will walk through the Valley of Death and darkness. But the Psalmist also assures us that we will not make that journey alone. God will travel by our side as we make that journey, guiding us and loving us along the way.
2022 January 1st, A World Day of Peace
So it is with this assurance that I enter the year 2022. As the Number’s reading reminds me, I am very loved and blessed by God. As Psalm 23 states, I will not make this journey alone. God will accompany me through 2022. And, as the Gospel passage for today states so very clearly in Mary reflecting on all these things in her hear, that even if violence and uncertainty rages around me, the in-dwelling, innate peace of God rests within me to calm me and reassure me.
