Between two years....

I am grateful for this week between Christ the King Sunday and Advent 1 -- the end of one church year and the beginning of another.  Many of us are preparing to travel, feast, and gather with family and friends.  I hope, too, that we can hold in our hearts and minds the wonder of the space between two church years. 

The movement from one church year to the next is quite different from the secular turn of time.  The church's New Year unfolds like a blossom - no countdown, no ball dropping, no loud shouts of HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! It is as if the page of an enormous book which tells the story of the people of God is inaudibly turned. The activities of our week and the happenings of our individual lives may compell us to mark our calendars with events of the past year that were both anticipated and dreaded...  we see some we will want to remember forever...and others we will want to forget ASAP.

But the children of God are drawn into a flow of "time" that both transcends and underlies what we see on the world's calendar.  We stand this week (and always) on a page of the ongoing story which is God's mysterious plan revealed in Christ.

The reading from Colossians reminds us about what is going on beneath the surface of our ordinary life. Always....every day!

Read it again -- s-l-o-w-l-y.... Colossians 1:15-20

He [Christ] is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers-all things were created through him and for him. He exists before all things and in him all things hold together, and he is the Head of the Body, that is, the Church. He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, so that he should be supreme in every way; because God wanted all fullness to be found in him and through him to reconcile all things to him, everything in heaven and everything on earth, by making peace through his death on the cross.

Praying with these words casts a blessed perspective on the way I experience time.  When I remember this week to stand still before Christ, the image of the unseen God, I see the world differently. I linger in a trust and a peaceful solidarity that transcends everything, and that holds all things together. Like almost everybody I encounter, the world tempts me to hurry, worry, or scurry busily from one concern or task to the next. As I look upon the past year, I know that without Christ this year (like all other years), the world's chaos would have beaten upon my life like a tsunami. I know that without Christ at the center of this upcoming year, there will be no "fullness or reconciliation" to be found. 

My heart and my soul are deeply grateful for the "New Year" opening in the Church, and for its fullness and peace for all!  I have great hopes for this new year...  don't you?

 Blessed New Year!!!!! and thanks be to God!