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December 31, 2020The first reading and the gospel remind us today of key moments in life, endings and beginnings. The Word of God was with God from the beginning, “became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” On this last day of the year 2020, the psalmist invites us to “sing to the Lord a new song.” Between reduced work hours, jobs lost and uncertainties about the future even with new COVID vaccines, so many victims along with those grieving in the US and worldwide, do not feel like singing today.
However, the prologue of the gospel of John, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, may help us put things in perspective. In the beginning was not COVID-19, the Spanish flu of one hundred years ago or the record number of hurricanes of this past year.
The question has been asked by some wise person: What was before the beginning? Was it more chaos? Mystics and other believers claim that before the beginning, there was the “silence of God” who continues to reveal God-Self in a “gentle breeze” when all seems chaotic. Could it be that the last hours of the last day of 2020 are to be set aside for silence? Why not turn off noise-making devices at least for a few hours, quiet oneself and focus in silence on the Word of God? We may then remember how in the fullness of time “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” before He redeemed us.
A most blessed 2021, Year of St. Joseph, to all of you!
