It’s been three weeks since we opened the calendar to 2024. We’ve looked ahead, perhaps adding more events that we wished for in our busy lives. Or maybe we looked with eager anticipation to days of fun, birthdays, reunions, vacations. Newscasts remind us that it will be an eventful year in politics. For those of us in Ohio, it’s been a frigid year so far.

Looking back on the year, paging through my planner, 2023 has been a year that I would never have imagined or desired. Hard days, sad days, days of doubt and uncertainty predominated. Yet I made it through. You did, too, readers. Despite my sister’s funeral and several events that stretched me beyond my comfort zone and abilities, God kept me in God’s provident care, as always.

Every morning I imagine a basket sitting on God’s lap. The weaved basket contains the day. I ask God to bless whatever is there and help me deal with the day’s events in the way God wants. And then the hours pass with success and failure, happiness and discomfort, my faults and my prayers. Then at night I lay my head on my pillow reflecting on the day held on the divine lap. Another day in 2024 will come soon enough.

You’ve probably seen signs like this one: “If you can read this, thank a teacher.” Take a moment to consider the teachers (living and deceased) for whom you are so grateful. They inspired you. They put you on a better path. They built up your confidence. They saw in you qualities you never knew were there.

In January the Church honors some saintly educators and those who inspired youth; namely Elizabeth Seton, John Neumann, Francis de Sales, Angela Merici, and John Bosco. (Although not canonized, I will add the two founding Sisters of the Sisters of Notre Dame whose birthdays fall in January.)

Consider thanking them in some way—a prayer, a note, a text or phone call. If they are in heaven, do something for teachers in a nearby school. Offer to assist in the multiple tasks that teachers face each day. Support scholarship programs. Or just stop by with a tray of goodies.

January 9 is the birthday of our foundress, Sister Maria Aloysia Wolbring. The very next day, January 10, is the birthday of our co-foundress, Sister Maria Ignatia Kühling, six years the senior of Sister Maria Aloysia. In God’s plan they became teachers in the same school. They both perceived the needs of children beyond formal education; the students first needed food, shelter, a stable family life. In the process of educating and caring, they discerned another call—to that of religious life. In 1850 on October 1 Hillegonda Wolbring and Lisette Kühling became the first Sisters of Notre Dame. Through times of trial and suffering with the help of each other, our two founding sisters gave direction to the congregation that now covers the globe. They passed on the charism of trust in God’s provident goodness. For nearly 175 years the Sisters have carried the torch. May our loved Congregation continue the spirit, trusting that “The dear God has always taken care and will certainly continue to do so” (Letter of Sister Maria Aloysia, 1881).

Have you ever noticed how much of Good Friday enters into the Christmas carols? One of my favorite songs is “Wood of the Cradle” by Francis Patrick O”Brien.  The lyrics bring together the wood of the cradle and the wood of the cross. It’s important that we realize every feast and season is a celebration of the Paschal Mystery—the whole life of Christ with emphasis on the dying and rising. One of my professors loved to remind us that “Every day is Christmas. Every day is Easter. Every day is everything.” As an experiment, pick up a hymnal or a carol book, and challenge yourself to find the death of Christ (Good Friday) and the resurrection of Christ (Easter) embedded in the Christmas hymns. If you can’t find specific references, you can also look for themes of death, suffering, heaven’s door opening, hope in our fear, freeing the bound, yoke of despair and bondage, rule of compassion, casting out sin, and so on.

In the First Letter of John, we read about an old commandment, a word that has already been heard. But then the author has second thoughts: “On second thought, the commandment that I write you is new.” We have all probably had the experience of hearing or reading a Scripture story many times. The Christmas story, for example, may be almost memorized. (Years ago my five-year-old nephew could recite several verses from Luke’s Infancy Narrative—those in the Peanuts version that Charles Schulz had the courage to include.) Yet there comes a moment when we think, “I never noticed that before.” That second thought is new. Or maybe we are new. Our spirituality may have become deeper. Our understanding of Scripture may have risen to a new level. Maybe God was tapping at our heart in a way we never experienced before. Thank God for your “second thoughts.” Thank John for his second thought on the commandment of love.

The New Testament reading for the Solemnity of Mary, Holy Mother of God (New Year’s Day) begins “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son. . .” The phrase “fullness of time” intrigues me. After millennia of creation, after multiple generations, God’s plan was “Now.” This instant. This person. This spot on the Earth. How infinitesimal. How grand. How humble. How magnificent. How full this moment in time.

No other moment will cause such a chain of events. No other person will be as graced and revered as Mary. No other point on earth can claim the human feet of God touched its soil. Everything, everyone was in readiness for a moment that was “the fullness of time.’”

Here we are on the first days of a new year. How will this year impact God’s mysterious plan? How will your home, place of work, town be the ground for God to walk? How will you be graced? Are you ready? Are you ready to make each 24-hour period of time a “fullness” for God?

When I opened my daily book of meditation, I saw “Monday, December 25.”  For a moment I felt a shock of surprise. How could the beautiful Masses I just attended be Monday, such a mundane workaday time in the week? Really? Christmas falling on a Monday? Something about it just didn’t seem right. After a reflective pause, I realized not much of the first Christmas seemed right either. So much of the most famous day of all times (around 4-7 B.C.) was ordinary with a mix of extraordinary. Now that’s an oxymoron! Extraordinary ordinariness. An ordinary feeding trough: the crib for the King of Creation. Workaday shepherds: believers in celestial beings. Messy rafters, dirt floors: Home, Sweet Home for Divinity. From all eternity the Trinity held the Mystery: Divinely Human, Humanly Divine.

We’ve all seen signs “The end is near.” What would happen if I walked around with a sign stating “The beginning is near”? What? In this Advent Season as we wait in joyful hope, we are already in the endtimes inchoatively as we proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. The Second Coming at the end of time shows us that the first coming in Bethlehem was not just a visitation but a permanent presence. The endtimes are already here, because all is fulfilled in Christ. It’s like a basketball game when your favorite team is ahead by 20 points and there are only 7 seconds left to play. We know the victory is already ours. We know the outcome. We’re just waiting for the clock to run out. The end time is a victorious new beginning, and the beginning is near.

Jesus multiplied bread and fish, but did they know Him when he came? He cast out demons and cured disease, but did they know him when he came? He preached in their synagogues and raised the dead. But did they know him when he came? He stretched out his arms in love on a cross and stretched his body in risen glory across the universe. But did they know Him when he came?

Today you and I passed people in the grocery store. We answered phone calls. We took care of our family. We saw people from around the globe via TV and the internet. Perhaps we briefly encountered salespersons, medical personnel, mail carriers, attendants, church-goers. In these people did we recognize the Christ? Do we know Christ when he comes?

Jesus had relatives, but Ancestry.com probably won’t get it right. Scripture hints that Elizabeth, John the Baptist, and a few others are “cousins.” Close cousins?  Shirttail cousins? Kissing cousins? Many times removed cousins?  Ilia Delio writes that the universe “possesses in its inner constitution a relation to the uncreated Word.” Because the Word bears the imprint of the Trinity, the Incarnation “is the perfect realization of what is potentially embedded in human nature, that is, union with the divine.” Christ and the world are intrinsically connected. Minerals, plants, animals, humans are related to Christ. Every creature is connected to Christ and to one another. I think this makes us all cousins to Christ and to each other.