Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert Leo Sevensky
The Holy Name, January 1, 2024
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O Lord, whose years are without end and who dwells in the light of an unending day: as we begin this year in your Name, grant us wisdom to use our time wisely, that your love may be the beginning and the ending of all our hopes, our work, our joy, and our desires. Amen.
Happy New Year!
Today's feast has had throughout the centuries many different titles, each highlighting or focusing our attention on one or another aspect surrounding the narrative of the birth of Jesus. It has simply been called the Octave Day of Christmas, reminding us that we need more than one day to take in the mystery of Christ coming among us. We need at least eight days. Some would even say: twelve. It's that big a deal.
In the Roman tradition today is called the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, drawing our gaze to that quiet but central figure who, as our Gospel today says, treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart thereby offering us a model of a true contemplative in action.
And today was for centuries titled the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ which inevitably reminds us of the Jewishness of Jesus who, like Jewish boys ever since the time of Abraham, entered into covenant of God's chosen people Israel through a ritual act marked in his flesh. There is understandably a certain hesitancy today with this title. I won't go into details but suffice it to say that small children still ask adults embarrassing questions when they hear this strange word. But to ignore it is to play, wittingly or unwittingly, into a kind of anti-Jewish rhetoric all too prevalent in our time.
Finally, we have the title we currently use in our Church, the Feast of the Holy Name with its comforting assurance that the Name of Jesus is a sign of salvation, and not just for Christians but for all people. It is a sign of hope and justice and peace.
So many titles, some many facets of a deep mystery. But let's be realistic. When was the last time anybody wished you a Happy Octave or a joyous Solemnity or a Sweet Holy Name Day or, rarest of all, a Blessed Circumcision?
No. It's Happy New Year, isn't it? And sometimes--not often, but sometimes--our popular culture is wiser than our liturgy. And I think today is one of them. So, I offer a few brief reflections on how we might begin this New Year. And I begin with a quote from Dag Hammarskjold who wrote famously in his journal Markings (1964) the following: “For all that has been — Thanks. For all that shall be — Yes.”
The first task of the New Year is to let go of the past. Not necessarily forget it or suppress it or minimize it, but to simply acknowledge that it is indeed past, though its effects, both good and bad, may linger deeply and profoundly. We are called to learn from it if we are ever to change its course and ours. We are to become wise. And we are to learn that most difficult of spiritual practices that St. Paul counsels: to give thanks in all circumstances (I Thes. 5:18). No matter how hard, to learn again to practice gratitude, even amid pain and trial, discouragement and emptiness.
Thes second task is to consent to the future, whatever it brings. Of course we do our best, but we do so trusting that One greater than us is active, inviting our cooperation, blessing our efforts and bringing them to perfection in ways that we may never see or understand in this mortal life.
“For all that has been — Thanks. For all that shall be — Yes.” And between the two is a period or a semicolon, a liminal pause, a resting place. Like Janus, the Roman god of two faces and for whom the month of January is named, we look both to the past and the future. We stand in the doorway, at the threshold, at the gate at once done and ready. And many of us may stand there for a very long time. There is no shame in that.
But when we find ourselves standing at the threshold, perhaps paralyzed by fear and uncertainty, the central spiritual act required of us is one of self-offering. Of availability. Of nurturing a willingness to align our dreams and desires and longings with those of the God who loves us and who dwells with us and in us. We may need to remind ourselves daily, if not more often, that our greatest freedom comes from being able to say, in one way or another: “Thy will be done.”
There are many prayers which have helped me in the lifelong and ongoing task of purifying my motives and redirecting my vision. The Lord's Prayer is certainly paramount. There was for decades the tradition in our monastic community that we brothers begin each day with the praying the Suscipe of Ignatius of Loyola, a 15th c. prayer that begins with the words: “Take and receive, Lord, my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding, my will…” It was the offering of the entire person to God, to the Higher Power, to serve God’s ends, God’s purpose, God’s dream for us and for all creation. Some of you here today in 12-Step Programs are no doubt familiar with the Third Step Prayer which voices that same intention: “God, I offer myself to Thee – To build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt…”
I treasure these prayers. But today I think particularly of one that comes to us from John Wesley, the 18th century evangelist, preacher, and founder of the Methodist movement. It is known as the Covenant Prayer.
In 1755 in London, Welsey, inspired by the German Moravians, instituted a Watchnight Service for New Year's Eve. The lengthy service included readings and testimony and confession and spontaneous prayer, and it culminated at midnight not with the dropping of a ball but with a prayer recited by everyone renewing their commitment to serve Christ and to serve others in Christ’s name and to accept freely whatever God intends and the New Year brings. It’s not unlike the renewal of the baptismal covenant that we in liturgical churches observe at Easter. The Covenant Prayer deserves sustained reflection and personal meditation. The best I can do this New Years Day is to read it to you in a contemporary language version, praying that it may guide you and me as we enter together into this Year of Grace 2024.
I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me to what you will, place me with whom you will.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be put to work for you or set aside for you,
Praised for you or criticized for you.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and fully surrender all things
To your glory and service.
And now, O wonderful and holy God,
Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer,
You are mine, and I am yours.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
Let it also be made in heaven.
Amen.
Happy New Year.
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