The Gate of the Year

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 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
He led me towards the hills
And the breaking of day in the lone east.
So heart be still!
What need our human life to know
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife of things
Both high and low,
God hideth his intention.

Fr Alex Caughey posted a verse on CathPews that brought back a deep personal memory for me. For years on my desk I had a framed postcard of the first five lines of this verse which was originally used by King George VI in his Christmas Broadcast to the British Empire in 1939. The original poem was written by Minnie Louise Harkin in 1908. Unfortunately I have mislaid the original framed postcard but Alex's post reminded me of how deeply the ideas implicit in that poem have become embedded in my own personal outlook towards life. None of us know accurately what the future holds and after many upsets in my life I feel less certain than many. Here with Catholica I keep writing that I don't know where this is heading. I mean it very deeply. This is a "faith endeavour": "going out into the darkness, putting our hand into the hand of God, and having a confidence that this is better than light and safer than a known way!"

For all of you readers of Catholica, and more especially those who have been bruised in your life journeys, I commend the sentiments encapsulated in this short poem. Life for many people is a bastard of an experience – look at all the people who have suffered abuse at the hands of priests and bishops in the institution you thought they might have trusted most – yet somewhere in the darkest moments of any life there is a Divine Spirit who gives us hope when there are few certitudes. None of us can own this Spirit exclusively but she helps light our way forward in times of both gloom and joy.

Brian Coyne, Editor and Publisher, 30Dec 2011

LINKS:
The Gate of the Year discussed on Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gate_of_the_Year
Fr Alex Caughey's post on CathPews is well worth reading in full (catch it quick as CathPews is closing tomorrow):
members7.boardhost.com/CathPews/msg/1325058746.html

PHOTO CREDIT:
The image used as the background is adapated from a graphic I created for the Great Jubilee celebrations in 2000.

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