Yesterday, I was standing in the back of church with my mask on and social distancing, greeting parishioners when with a big smile on her face Mary says, “I feel hopeful for this new year.” You could hear in her voice that she was ay peace and joyful for she really believed that we are on our way of healing.
I believe that hope does not disappoint.
The last year has been tough. Many of us feel battered and bruised, some of us in our bodies, but most of us in our spirits. We can boast of our afflictions over the last year. We can see how they refined us and how they built our endurance and our character. Not that it did not hurt. It hurt. And yet, we realized just how strong we are. We can boast in hope.
We don’t know what this new year will hold. We hope for healing for ourselves, our families, our communities, and our nation.
St. Paul reaches out from the pages of his letter to comfort us, telling us of what he reminded those first-century Christians, that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38–39)
We can imagine all the things we think separate us from the love of God and add them to Paul’s list: our fears—of now and the future—our fear of media, of leaders, of ourselves. None of that can separate us from the love of God that has been poured into us through the Holy Spirit.
May we cling to that love.
May it heal us.
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Frineds that as we prepare to receive our vaccines, we live in the spirit of hope that we have become what You have always seen in each of us. Hearts full of gratitude and compassion and reaching out to those in darkness and despair to offer them Your Love and Peace.
