Allow me to share excerpts of Fr. Joe Galdon’s article entitled, “January Has Two Faces.”
“Nick Joaquin has a very interesting story about the feast of St. Sylvester, which falls on December 31, the last day of the year. Joaquin writes ‘to open the doors of the New Year, the Romans invoked the god Janus, patron of doors and beginnings. (That is why the first month of the year was called January!) Janus’ two faces (one staring forward, the other backward) are a symbol of man’s ability to dwell on the past while speeding into the future.’ ‘In Christianity, the role of Janus has been taken over by another Roman – St. Sylvester, Pope and confessor, whose feast falls on the last day of the year. At midnight on that day, according to traditions, St. Sylvester appears on earth, and with the keys of his office, opens all the gates of the principal archepiscopal cities, and celebrates the first Mass of the year in each cathedral.’
“As we start this new year, this year 2010, let us then look back to the year that was: accomplishments and failures, good weather and the typhoons we had to whether through, good health and illness (A H1N1, Dengue), life and death. “It’s good for us to figure out what went wrong last year, open the doors to the new year, and try to be a little bit better in the days that lie ahead. Ayn Rand says that if we want to be truly happy people, we have to look back and say ‘I’m sorry’ and look forward and say ‘I will!’… I guess that is why the month of January has two faces, too! To remind us to look back and to look forward and to change.
The beginning of the new year… has always been the traditional time for changing our lives and for making resolutions. One of the most consoling realizations as we grow older is that we CAN change our lives! We can open the door to a new life. We are not prisoners of the past!” WE learn from our past. We dream of our future and work on it. The turning of a year is always a good time to take stock of where we are and to look for lessons of the past that may guide us into the future.
Allow me to share with you a story which was part of the homily I gave yesterday at the Mass at the Gesu for the Feast of the Epiphany. Henry van Dyke wrote the story called “The Other Wise Man.” It is about the 4th person who is supposed to accompany the other three wise men on their journey to search for the newborn King. The name of this other wise man is Artaban. It is said that as Artaban prepares for the journey, he takes with him a bag of precious stones as his present to the baby King. On his way to join the other three wise men, Artaban stops to help a poor person. In so doing, he misses his rendezvous with the others. He is left behind. Artaban tries to catch up but every time he constantly runs into people who need help. And he always stops to help them. In so doing he gives away all the precious stones he planned to give to the newborn king. As the story ends, Artaban is old and poor. He never realized his dream to meet the King of Kings and to place at his feet his gift of precious stones.
The story of “The Other Wise Man” could end here but if it did it would be a story of a man who never realized his one big dream. But the story does not end here. It continues that one day Artaban is in
I tell this story of “The Other Wise Man” to stress the reality that sometimes we are not able to succeed in the pursuit of our dreams. When we look back to our past there are failures. The story of Artaban is the story of many of us. We start our journeys with a fervent desire to pursue our dreams. But somehow, somewhere, something happens which makes us “lose” our direction towards our dreams. We do not have to look beyond our shores to search for examples. We know of the many lives and properties lost with the typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng the past year. Many of the people who were affected had worked hard to have a comfortable home and a good life but the floods made the fulfillment of their dreams a thing of the past. But the wrath of nature and the greed of people destroyed not just the dreams of people but lives and homes as well.
My dear friends in the Lord, let us not stop dreaming or pursuing our dreams. If we had failures in the past year, let us learn from them. Our God has promised us that He will never abandon us. Have faith in Him. If we come to think of it, God’s dream for us is for us to be happy. God the Son embraced our human nature to be one with us. He is one with us in our joy as well as our sadness. When we were not yet content with that love, He embraced pain and suffering and even death on the cross to show us His love, to make us happy. At the end of our lives, I believe one question God will ask of us is, “Were you happy?”… really, truly and genuinely happy? If we are happy, God is happy. But let us not end with that. Let us end with making God to be happy, to have as our dream the happiness of God.
Artaban was happy not only because he found Jesus but more so because he realized that what he has been doing all along was making Jesus happy. We will be happy this year not so much because we have found God but because we have made God happy: with our words, our deeds, our lives. May we find God in everything and may everyone find God in us.
Let us end with the prayer of Dag Hammarsjold, “For all that has been, thank you; and for all that will be, Yes.”
- Fr. Eli Rowdy Y. Lumbo, SJ
