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A Happy and Blessed New Year to you.

Here it is, the year 2021. For long, I haven’t anticipated the coming of a new year as much as this New Year’s Eve. Now, it is here. Now, we are here. Now, we are still not together and not much has changed. We all knew that the pandemic wouldn’t disappear on New Year’s Day and that it would still take a good part of this year to return to something we remember as more “normal”, but there are people—as me—who pushed that thought away and who kept their eyes fixed on the beginning of this New Year.

It is now, that the message of Christmas develops its wonderful power. God did not choose to become human as a mighty and powerful war king. God became human in Jesus, the poor child from Nazareth. God chose the arms of a poor family to be the Temple. I am sure God did not hesitate for a second to be born into our lives and hearts this Christmas, despite the situation we are in. God is here, right among us.

With the Wise Men, the Magi, we have to learn to see the Divine in the ordinary (or this year maybe rather in the extraordinary: the circumstances of a global pandemic). As community, we can help one another to see God’s presence among us. St. Clement’s has done so well in staying connected, caring for one another and praying for each other.

Let us continue with the same passion in the New Year. We can be God’s presence for one another; a phone call or a kind letter, a nice word while passing one another on the street or during one of our zoom meetings and community cluster encounters. Please know, that Peggy, Elizabeth and I are praying for you and we miss you dearly at Church.

Not much has changed this January 1st, but something small has: there is a light at the horizon and we can be hopeful that this light will “break upon us, to give light to those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Benedictus, Lk 1:68b-79).

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