JOYFUL PASSAGES

WINTER 2022

THE BEGINNING OF A NEW CALENDAR YEAR – a month after Advent signals the start of the liturgical year – can seem dark and difficult. As we take down the tree, put away the crèche, and make our winter preparations for the months ahead, it’s easy to forget the joy of the Christmas season.

To help us through, we asked some notable Catholics from around the Archdiocese of New York to recommend some words (or songs) of wisdom and inspiration to remind us of the light that lies beyond the gray skies. Scroll down for an assortment of readings, prayers, songs, books, and meditations.  

Editor's Note: Archways wants to know your go-to texts of wisdom, faith and joy. Send them to archways@archny.org. 
 

WITH GRATITUDE AND BLESSINGS

Sr. Mary Catherine Redmond, PBVM
New Windsor

Every year on New Year’s Eve, I thank God for the year that has been and ask for God’s blessing and presence for the upcoming year. Below is my prayer for 2022. I invite each person to make their own list
of gratitude and blessings, and I pray you experience a loving God in the midst of your list.

I am grateful for the gift of life.
Bless all with abundant life – physical, emotional, spiritual – so we can be a sign of your love in our world.

I am grateful for the gift of family.
Bless all whose families are fractured by addiction, illness, migration, lack of resources. Bless all those I love. Gift them with the life they give me.

I am grateful for the gift of community.
Bless all who continue to shape my life by their challenges, diversity, friendship, forgiveness, and care.

I am grateful for transition.
Bless all who are experiencing change in their lives this year. May those who are unsure be graced with new life, awareness, talents, and skills.

I am grateful for all that has been.
Bless all who have helped to shape who I am. Keep them safe, give them strength, healing, and peace.  

I am grateful for fragility.
Bless all who are fragile this year; fragility has gifted me with insight, new awareness, courage, and strength I never knew I had.

I am grateful for life’s gifts.
Bless those who will be without home, food, companionship, and those who suffer abuse of any kind.

I am grateful for God’s presence.
Bless all who strive to know you more deeply, especially those who stand on the margins of our world.
With your presence, may I be a living sign of your love in the world.
 

A PRAYER FOR PEACE

Deacon Jack Shea
Sts. John and Paul, Larchmont

I have been saying this prayer every morning since the early 1990s:

Father in Heaven, we are all your children.

Please give us peace throughout the world.

Help us to love you and one another, as Jesus has taught us.

Help us to share the gifts you have given us with others,
so that no one has to go without food,
clothing, or knowledge of your love for us.

Let us be your helping hands in our communities.

Amen.
 

THE GIFT OF NOTHING – AND EVERYTHING

Fatima Carvalho-Gianni
Principal, Sts. John and Paul School, Larchmont

At the turn of the new year, following the Christmas season of love and hope, we search for a renewal of life and perspectives. I go back to a book I read to my children when they were young: The Gift of Nothing, by Patrick McDonnell. Its pages are simple but powerful, and the words are ironically truthful. Mooch the cat wants to give his friend Earl the dog a special gift. He is at a loss for what to give him, since Earl already has everything. In the end, Mooch finds the perfect gift of “nothing but us.”

An excess of worldly things cannot satisfy the heart. Mooch and Earl are different from each other but still make an unbelievable friendship. They teach us to appreciate each other through being still and enjoying “nothing and everything.” What a great way to start the new year by spending time with the people you love, reaching out to people who may be different but alike in spirit, and enjoying the simple things in life together.
 

SONGS OF COMFORT

Sr. Carol De Angelo, SC

As we endure the dreary dark days of winter, I invite all to listen to two songs on the album Gentle Night, by St. Louis Jesuits: “Patience People” and “The People That Walk in Darkness.” The Advent and Christmas seasons might be over, but the words and melodies of these two songs offer comfort and inspiration as we live through cold and barren days.

Patience, people,
till the Lord is come.

See the farmer await
the yield of the soil.

He watches it in winter
and in spring rain.

Patience, people,
for the Lord is coming.

Patience, people,
till the Lord is come.

- St. Louis Jesuits, “Patience People”

Unless the seed falls
to the ground and dies,
it remains a seed.

- John 12:24

In the winter and spring of 1992, I lived in Jerusalem for four months. That winter the snow and cold broke records. With the arrival of spring, the Judean desert was alive with multicolored flowers. Newspaper articles reported that flowers bloomed that had not been seen for a hundred years. May winter be a time we water and nourish ourselves and the seeds of God’s love within and among us, hidden though they may be. Let winter days be an invitation to unwrap God’s gifts of patience and hope, two virtues sorely needed today.
 

LIVING THROUGH THE PANDEMIC

Msgr. Kevin Sullivan
Executive Director, Catholic Charities of New York

In the past year and a half, many New Yorkers have rediscovered (or discovered for the first time) The Plague, by Albert Camus. It tells the fictional story of an outbreak of bubonic plague in an Algerian city in the 1950s, but in many ways it speaks directly to us today. It’s well worth reading (or rereading) as we continue to live through the epoch of the coronavirus.

“Dr. Rieux resolved to compile this chronicle, so that he should not be one of those who hold their peace but should bear witness in favor of those plague-stricken people . . . and to state quite simply what we learn in time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise.”