Today’s lectionary Gospel shows Jesus withdrawing to a deserted place. Perhaps the past few weeks have been filled with unusual activity: putting up decorations and taking them down, cooking treats and exercising off the calories, shoveling snow and writing thank-you notes, getting back into a routine or wishing for some normalcy. Withdrawing to a deserted place may seem welcome. Can you find a park, a room in your home, a space in your heart to withdraw from activity? If Jesus needed to “get away from it all,” so do we.

Today’s lectionary Gospel reading tells of Jesus who regularly taught in the synagogues. “According to his custom. . .he stood up to read.” He selected a passage from Isaiah that we have come to call Jesus’ mission statement. In the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus would give sight to the blind, free the oppressed, and proclaim glad tidings to the poor. The years of his ministry fulfilled his promise.

If you were to stand up to read a passage from Scripture that fits your life and its mission, what would it be?

As a Christmas present, I received Bead Attitudes, the polymer clay artwork of Dan Roth in Sandusky, Ohio. The ten prayer beads can be prayed in multiple ways as the accompanying paper suggests. I will share a few of these ways with you. If you don’t have Bead Attitudes, a decade of the rosary or your ten fingers will be fine.

• Pray for ten family members or persons in need
• Repeat your favorite name for God ten times.
• Count ten blessings.
• Feel God’s love and light on each bead.
• Bless ten persons you will probably meet this day.
• Call to mind ten Scriptural names for Jesus: Shepherd, Healer, Savior, Bread of Life….

The first time I received beads at Christmas I was five years old. My four-year-old sister also received her tiny first rosary. As on every other night of the year, we prayed the family rosary on Christmas Eve. My sister and I used our new rosaries. She managed to come out to the right bead.  I was only half-way through my rosary. Just one of the many times my younger sister was smarter than I.  (Don’t worry.  We’ve always had a super-excellent attitude toward one another.)

In this Christmas Season we read the prelude to the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word.” This reminds us of the first line in Genesis: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and earth.” The Incarnation, in effect, began with creation. The whole purpose of creation was to let God share and unite beyond the Godself. Creation was God’s means to have more to love.

And that Word of God from the beginning became incarnate. Billions of years before the Bethlehem census, salvation began–from the very first moment, from the Almighty’s command “Let there be light.” Creation has always groaned from that moment on.  Paul states in Romans 8:22, “Yes, we know that all creation groans and is in agony even until now.” The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, was not the only one experiencing pangs of birth in the story of redemption. She was united with the whole universe in its act of creation, which is an act of redemptive groaning. The Christ we are awaiting is part of the creation story, still straining and groaning toward its completion. We are still in Advent waiting for the Universal Christ.

As you pack away the manger scene, consider the wooden feeding trough in which the Infant lay. Joseph softened it with straw, and Mary wrapped the Baby in whatever softness she could. Were these holy parents embarrassed by such a poor crib? There’s a lovely Christmas song by Francis Patrick O’Brien titled “Wood of the Cradle.” Its lyrics compare the wood of the cradle and the wood of the cross, one of joy and the other of loss. Our God who was born in a manger died on a tree. Its final notes are enigmatic in their command: “Kneel at the manger and rise from the grave.”

Christmas and New Year’s were far from typical this year. Canceled parties. Family gatherings only by zoom. Expected presents never arriving in time. Empty chairs at the dining room table. Round the clock shifts in hospitals. Political and social uncertainty in unbelievable proportions. The wooden feeding trough was not a typical baby’s crib, but it held the Bread of Life—our blessed food.

On the day of the winter solstice many of us looked to the western sky to see Saturn and Jupiter in their closest proximity in 800 years. Unfortunately, thick cloud cover made seeing any star impossible.  It made me think of a line from an Advent song from the Saint Louis Jesuits: “darkness covers the earth; thick clouds cover the people.” But the song promises Light will come, “for a Child is born.”

Several of us Sisters went caroling to our Sisters of Notre Dame Center in Whitehouse, Ohio. While the sisters were enjoying dinner, we gathered at the windows very safely distanced as we waved and sang. A couple nights later we could see the two planets, but we knew that bringing smiles to forty SND “stars” was another way to see the Bethlehem Star.

Mary could have reacted with fear many times—the startling message of Angel Gabriel, no vacancy in the inn, Simeon’s predictions of swords piercing her heart, a caravan of camels and kings, a flight to a foreign country—all within a couple years and while she was still a teenager! Though her heart was racing, Mary reacted with the fullness of grace she possessed. Mary treasured what she heard and experienced and reflected on these things.

There will be plenty of challenging times in this new year. How will we react? Will we pause for prayer? Will we try to respond in gentle, kind ways in difficulties? Ask Mary today to help you throughout the year to treasure and reflect.

St. Paul writes, “Our inner nature is being renewed every day” (2 Cor. 16). Yeah, 365 days to renew our spirits! How can I “re-new” my spirit? Could my New Year’s resolution be to make a “new me”? How can I make 2021 a year for good things? Here’s a thought. Take your new calendar and occasionally put a mark on some of the days. Let the mark remind you to put some extra goodness in that day. At the end of the day—and at the end of the year–reflect on how focusing on goodness has renewed your spirit. Then praise, thank, and glorify God for God’s goodness.

Although still in a pandemic, some are quite relieved to see 2020 pass. Perhaps 2021 will be better. No matter how we feel about putting up a new calendar and bidding farewell to the old one, we need to remember that 2020 was a year of the Lord, a year of grace, even if we did not perceive it as such.

In a New Year’s Eve sermon, Karl Rahner wrote: “We can take leave of this year gratefully and entrust it to the grace and love of God, the love of the God who is eternity and who preserves for us for our eternity what we are taking our leave of today and tomorrow. What we give in gratitude, God receives in grace, and what is so accepted by him, is redeemed and made holy, blessed and set free.”

At age 84 Anna was still in the temple “worshiping day and night in fasting and prayer.” Maybe she still had a few months or years of life left, but her future became shorter day by day, and death was one day closer. Fortunately for Anna, she was in the right place at the right time. “Coming on the scene at this moment,” she witnessed a man and woman fulfilling the rituals of the Law. Like Simeon, was she “inspired by the Spirit” to be in that spot? Did she notice fear in the parents’ eyes and wonder what Simeon had just said to them? Did she, too, feel that she could be dismissed in peace with a “Nunc dimittis” like Simeon’s? We know that she gave thanks to God and “talked about the child to all who looked forward to the deliverance of Jerusalem.”

Our day, our lives are filled with moments. Many of them may seem inconsequential. God came to earth “when the designated time had come.” (Gal. 4:4). Be attentive to whatever might be a “designated time.” Be ready “at this moment.”