Few people will be sad to see the end of 2020. Rather than "Auld Lang Syne," we might want to sing something along the lines of "So Long, Farewell." In a minor key.
Our connections, like yours, have almost all gone virtual, cutting us off from direct contact with family, friends, collaborators, neighbors, even the incidental relationships you wouldn't think of at the end of any other year but 2020. We are even practicing social distancing in our own chapel and refectory!
In my international community, we have had news of a number of deaths from the coronavirus, including that of a dynamic Mexican sister not much older than I who died within hours of the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Of course, being a religious family, we have shared each other's anxieties about relatives who were sick or on the front lines (as some of my loved ones are), and we are constantly receiving heart-rending prayer intentions from every part of the world. We lift them up daily in our community prayers. (There have been times, though, when we have not been able to have community prayer here in the motherhouse, due to some connection to a positive test.) Thankfully, none of the sisters in our very large community have been directly affected, but we put exceptional preventative measures in place almost immediately.
No matter what this "annus horribilis" has brought us, it has not disproved God's promise of "I am with you always." No, a God who would die on a cross for us "will make all things work together for good" (Rom 8:28), regardless of how it seems to us from our time-bound vantage point. Still, we can all wish 2020 good riddance, and hope for more manifest blessings in 2021, the Year of St Joseph and (newly declared) Year of the Family. (Are you sensing a theme here?)
My community always solemnizes the coming of a New Year with Eucharistic Adoration, since it was during midnight adoration on New Year's Eve 1900 that our Founder received the first prophetic inspiration for his life's work. We look back on the year that has passed (yes, even this year), and give thanks to God for the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The forced confinement alone has cost a lot! (I am definitely not cut out for the cloister.) And yet I have to also acknowledge light and inspiration in the midst of the crosses that have been thrust upon me. (I don't have to like a cross to admit its benefits.)
Do you have a way to solemnize the arrival of a new year? Perhaps this year you could do something different, given that the whole year has been so different anyway. What are some ideas? Please share them in the comments. (Our convent practices might not work for you!) If you have a special prayer for the end of this strange year, or as we begin a new year under pandemic conditions, please share it!
Thanks so much, and ... may your New Year be happy (and blessed)!
2 comments:
I will join my husband in watching EWTN and praying the rosary with Mother Angelica, R.I.P. Afterwards I will retire to my prayer place and pray Night Prayer with the Carmelites of the Province of the Most Pure Hear of Mary.
Please remember us in your Rosary tonight!
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