I was an adolescent when I first heard the opening lines of “Gate of the Year”, by Minnie Louise Haskins. It was read to me by my dad, with whom I shared a fledgling love of poetry.
Apparently, “Gate of the Year” became well known when it was quoted by King George VI in his 1939 wartime Christmas broadcast to the British Empire. Many years later, when my father shared it with me, Haskins’ words in Dad’s mouth conveyed a keen sense of need, of trust and courage:
… I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year,
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And (God) led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.1
Fast forward to these first days of 2025, and my recent conversation with the man! There is so much at the gate of this year, that seems dark and uncertain. Wars and rumors of wars disclose how brutal, mean and mercenary we humans can be. Many of us have jettisoned the need to tell the truth to one another, to respect one another, to prioritize the common good, or to adhere to any kind of shared values or “moral compass”. Or “moral thermostat”. We keep ignoring climate change while our actions destroy our planet-home.
At the same time, there are also many among us who do tell the truth, despite what it costs. There are many humans who are loving and brave when it would be simpler to simply look away. How can we humans live such contradictions – within ourselves and among ourselves? How can I/we live with integrity in such a morass?
Into this present mélange of light and dark, generosity and meanness, down the long corridors of memory my father’s words come back to me, morphing into the words of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.2
I feel the instability. The memory of my father’s and de Chardin’s words, balances me. I put my hand once again into the hand of God, and head out into the darkness, trusting in the slow work of God.
1 Minnie Louise Haskins. Gate of the Year. For more, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gate_of_the_Year
2 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ. From Ignatian Spirituality. Available at: https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/prayer-of-theilhard-de-chardin/
Veronica Dunne is a Sister of our Lady of the Missions (RNDM), who has primarily worked as an educator and counsellor in institutional and community based settings in Canada. She has also served with the RNDMs outside of Canada in Senegal, Peru, and Aotearoa New Zealand.
A 2002 Doctor of Ministry graduate from the University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto School of Theology at the University of Toronto, she subsequently served as director of the Doctor of Ministry program at St. Stephen’s College at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Her current research interests are in eco-theology and cosmology, and their intersections with indigenous cosmologies and spiritualties.
She presently serves on the RNDM leadership team in Canada.
You nailed it, Veronica! Thank you for describing our entrance into a new year and the patience we need to exercise when we recognize and accept that a Power Far Greater than us is in control and given time will come through with a solution to our situation. All we need to do is trust and have courage.
For some reason, perhaps its my age, I find great consolation in Chardin’s words: the slow work of God, and his encouragement to “trust” it! Thanks Veronica.