“I thought upon the days of old; and I had in my mind the eternal years; and I meditated in the night with my own heart.     Ps 76:6-7

 

Another “Year of Our Lord,” has gone and no man can lay an arresting finger to stay one single moment of all the myriad points of time that have gone by us in the year’s slow turn.  Another “Year of Our Lord”!  How strange that sounds as we sit this St. Sylvester’s night and call up from memory’s fruitful store the lapsed deeds of well-nigh forgotten days!  How eagerly we sped forward as the New Year opened out its bright, fresh way!  How high were our hearts to do and dare for Christ!  Yet as the days went by, and week was told off into month, the friction of mortal life went hard against us, and we fell aside from our high resolve.  No, not altogether – thank God! – for we still kept our eyes fixed on Christ, “the Author and Finisher of our faith.”  We still held fast to our soldier’s plighted oath.  But we grew aweary at times and slackened in our strong purpose.  The uncharitable word escaped our peevish lips, the spiteful glance sped quick from our angered eye, the harsh thought raced across our jealous mind.  We forgot the knighthood of our calling and “followed from afar” our thorn-crowned King.  The world and its tinseled pleasures lost their hollowness for us and we tried to find our heart’s repose in the trinkets of an hour.

 

Yet over all the days and all the nights hangs the shadow of God’s Hand outstretched caressingly!  Christmastide and Lenten days, Easter-tide and Pentecostal feasts, and Mary Mother’s holy days brought richest graces to our struggling soul.  Each morning that we rose, each evening that we laid aside the labors of the day, across the noontide hours, the freshening steam of heavenly blessings fell.  Many a morning, too, nay perhaps by God’s good grace, each morning, we knelt in lowly adoration in the throne-room of the King, and the Lord of Lords came down in rude disguise and tarried within our hearts.  Oh, blessed days they were and happy hours when God came down and dwelt within us!

Small wonder then, that we call it a “Year of Our Lord.”  Never a moment slipped by into eternity, never an hour aged us towards our grave but Christ our Captain stood by our side and nerved our hearts to wage His holy war.  “Ask of the days of old, that have been before thy time, from the day that God created man upon the earth, from one end of heaven to the other end thereof, if ever there was done the like thing; or it hath been known at any time”.

Jesus, my God, “another year is dying – let it die.”  Much there is that makes Your wearied knight hang a shameful head.  But though faults there were, by Your strong grace, my post I never left, Your flag I never lowered.  And now, strong Leader, I stand upon a New Year’s coming.  What press of battle will strain my soul,  I know not.  But here I am, Your knight, strong in Your strength to dare and do – and one day die.  My King and Lord, stand by me when the days are bright and shield me when the night comes down, until the last, dim, weird battle of the west brings swiftly to its close the last sweet “Year of Our Lord.”

“Another year is dawning

Dear Master, let it be,

In working or in waiting,

Another year with Thee

Another year is dawning,

Dear Master, let it be,

On earth or else in Heaven,

Another year for Thee”