From Our Pastor
January 2012
Have you ever wondered where the name January came from? It actually is derived from the Roman god Janus, the god with two faces, one looking to the past and the other looking to the future. When we begin the New Year we all tend to look to the past along with making resolutions for the future. We ask ourselves many questions, such as; how did I spend this one year of my life that has just passed? Could I have done better last year in the way I invested my time between the demands of work, family, friends, society, and the demands of my spiritual life? Much time is spent pondering these things in our hearts.
In the Gospel of Luke, Mary is a model of that new life in Christ that all of us wish for ourselves in the New Year. There we see that Mary was prepared to do something to realize this goal. What did she do? We read that the shepherds, when they went to adore the Child Jesus in the manger, told all that the angels had said to them. “But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). Again, after the boy Jesus was found in the Temple, we are told that “His mother treasured all these things in her heart” (Luke 2: 51). Mary was a woman who valued the word of God, who treasured it and made time to meditate and ponder it. She pondered the word of God in order to discern what God was saying to her at every stage in her life as the handmaid of God.
Whatever the situation in which we find ourselves – a hardship, a disappointment, a decision to make – God has a solution, an answer that is right for us. We tell God about it in prayer but we also listen to what God has to tell us about it. Prayer is a conversation with God but sometimes all we do is pick up the phone, read out the list of our problems to God and drop the phone without listening to hear what God has to say to us. Let us today resolve to listen more to the voice of God, to treasure God’s word and ponder it in our hearts. Then shall we be able to realize our New Year resolution of a new life in union with God.
