If the past is simply prelude to the future, we may be reluctant to face a new year. The pandemic threatening the world, the politics dividing our nation, the reorganization of the parishes of our archdiocese all threaten our peace of mind and the comfort zones we once knew.
A poem written a century ago by Minnie Louise Haskins, a British poet and sociologist, was quoted by King George VI in his Christmas Address in 1939 to encourage his people as they faced the unknown consequences of war.
The comfort the poem offered the people of Britain may well provide comfort for us in our uncertain times. May its theme make your Christmas truly Merry, and your New Year surprisingly Happy!
THE GATE OF THE YEAR (aka GOD KNOWS) by Minnie Louise
Haskins
And 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 He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in
the lone East.
So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low,
God hideth His intention.
God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; in Him
All time hath full provision.
Then rest: until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life’s stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God’s thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.
