How many New Resolutions have we made and broken within a couple of weeks or even within days, over the years? There is so much excitement around the Christmas Season so that we are eager for new beginnings but, as you have discovered like myself, after pulling down the decorations, routine soon sets in and we are back to square one!
One thing that has caught my imagination, particularly during this Christmas Season, is the tension and fear for the future. Here we were a few weeks back singing “Joy to the world” when we know that maybe as close as next door to us, there is violence, poverty and more recently, total destruction of all that we hold dear due to flooding, images of homelessness, raging fires and not to mention the constant vitriol of the society and world around us. It is not surprising that for some, the joy of “Emmanuel” often gets packed away with the decorations until next year!
This tension and fear for the future is not just of this age but we heard recently Herod was planning to destroy the Joy of the world:
“Herod summoned the wise men secretly – go and search for the child . . . bring me word, that I too may come and worship him!”
These wise men, who studied and calculated maybe for years to seek the position of the star to find the child, after just a short divine inspiration left for their countries “by another way!”
May be that should be our New Year’s Resolution, to do things by inspiration – by short moments of prayer as an acknowledgement that the miracle that despite the deviations of our world, Christ is still is alive and dwells with us. The Prayer of breathing – taking time each day to pray the following:
I inhale the world’s tension,
I exhale the hatred and violence buried deep within.
I inhale your peace.
I exhale my anxieties.
Not only am I doing something proactive for my own health but we encourage all to engage in deep breathing to experience” by another way,” to bring peace and harmony into our world.
Thank you for your reflection. When I returned to it again today, what struck me was your “prayer of breathing”, which today has helped me face the chaos of our present world:
I inhale the world’s tension,
I exhale the hatred and violence buried deep within.
I inhale your peace.
I exhale my anxieties.