In a spirit of hope we welcome 2018 and give thanks for the gift of another new year! Each year January 1 is celebrated as the World Day of Peace – a day instituted by Pope Paul VI in 1968. In the spirit of this day we pray that peace between individuals and nations may be given a chance to break through during the coming year.
As we step out with faith and trust into the unknown of the new year, we recommit to looking for the signs of hope and goodness in whatever the year might hold for us and for the world.
This seems a good time to draw on the wisdom of Henri Nouwen who once wrote in Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Faith and Wisdom:
“Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say, “How will next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?” There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Let’s rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away.”
