The First Sunday of the Year 2021

For those who observe the newfangled Liturgical Calendar, the Epiphany will be observed today. Those who stick with the Traditional Calendar will celebrate this great feast on Wednesday. 

Whichever way you go, recall the Wise Men. Their number has come down to us as three. Their names: Gaspar, Melchior, Balthasar. Call it legend if you wish, but, for me, this sounds about right. I'll stick with it.

While our family will do our best to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, we will also bear the memory of the death of our eldest child. Two years ago, we awoke on January 3rd with the knowledge of his having died the night before, in an Intensive Care Unit. We all gathered there late at night. The hospital was - fortunately - quiet, bereft of visitors given the hour. So we could be together without distraction. 

His room was fully decorated for Christmas, the work of his brothers and his wife who wanted to bring some cheer to his surroundings, even as he lay in a medically induced coma for the previous 18 days. There was a tree with lights, and other decorations. All had to be dismantled that night, as the hospital needed the room for another patient. 

Ever since, my wife and I have decorated our home with that small Christmas tree. I don't know if we'll continue to do so, but we have these last two years. As you might imagine, deep sadness has mingled with the joy of the Season ever since.

I bring all this up because it helps us put things in order. Before the events of two years ago, the clashing of the newfangled and traditional Liturgical Calendars used to grate on my nerves. Attending Novus Ordo Masses with the awful music that accompanied them on Sundays used to grate on my nerves. The list of things that grated on my nerves goes on but I'll spare you. I'll spare you just as God has spared me all this grating (or at least most of it!) as a result of the death of our son. 

But all of this grating on nerves doesn't only apply to matters related to Holy Mother Church. Pretty much anything and everything that once irritated me has become either irrelevant, muted, or much easier to ignore. And that which in any way hints at raising my hackles immediately becomes subject to Father De Caussade's advice from Abandonment to Divine Providence:

“…The great principle of the interior life is peace of soul, and it must be preserved with such care that the moment it is attacked all else must be put aside and every effort made to try and regain this holy peace, just as, in an outbreak of fire everything else is neglected to hasten to extinguish the flames…true inspirations of God…are always sweet and peaceful, inducing to confidence and humility…We must, therefore, constantly reject all that does not sow signs of peace, submission, sweetness and confidence…”

In a sense, our son's sudden death has been the catalyst for this. And, when fully practiced, the result can only be a strengthening of the Interior Life. Much as I'd have preferred to have learned this lesson some other way, the fact is part of God's Plan has differed from what I might wish.

So I've learned to accept much, and to not let most things unhinge me anymore. Not a bad insight to inform the beginning of a New Year. 

Oh, and by the way, this idea of connecting that which upsets the peace of the soul with a fire, and reacting to it in that fashion, has actually sunk its teeth in. Perhaps not 100%, but certainly with enough frequency that, with God's grace, maybe a new - and especially good - habit can be formed. 

If so, who needs those New Year's resolutions everyone goes on and on about?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!