December 2020 CLCNW Newsletter
By Lorraine Damman
 

We of the CLCNW Regional Council hope that you had a blessed Christmas.  As we reach the end of 2020 and look back let us remember the people who made a difference.  Our Governors who worked tirelessly to find ways to save our people in this Pandemic time.  Our firefighters who fought fires that raged out of control in the west.  Doctors and nurses that worked 24/7 to bring relief to COVID-19 patients.  And many, many individuals, good people, quiet people who reached out to others in small ways and in big. 

Our two Zoom retreats brought so much inspiration and joy to our members.  It is with thanks that we remember the beautiful words of Pat Carter Anderson and Fr. J. Michael Sparough, our two facilitators.

2021 can be a rebirth, a chance for our country to heal.  With a vaccine also comes the hope that this Pandemic will be over this year or next.  With politicians and church leaders that are speaking out for compassion, peace and change, there is hope for 2021.  With each of us reaching out in our own way, compassionately giving to others there will be hope and love and peace in 2021. As Pat Carter Anderson said in our fall retreat:  We are expressions of the divine, loved into being to participate in the building of the kingdom. But at a deeper level of seeing, knowing, and discerning. We see the reality of the world through God’s loving gaze and become aware of God’s working through that reality. . .”

How to Enter the New Year

By Vinita Hampton Wright on Ignatianspirituality.com

“If you’re reading this, you lived to see the new year. This is no small matter! Your life makes a difference in the universe, whether or not you embrace your God-given power. May this prayer accompany your initial steps into the future.

God of all time,
help us enter the New Year quietly,
thoughtful of who we are to ourselves and to others,
mindful that our steps make an impact
and our words carry power.
May we walk gently.
May we speak only after we have listened well.
Creator of all life,
help us enter the New Year reverently,
aware that you have endowed
every creature and plant, every person and habitat
with beauty and purpose.
May we regard the world with tenderness.
May we honor rather than destroy.
Lover of all souls,
help us enter the New Year joyfully,
willing to laugh and dance and dream,
remembering our many gifts with thanks
and looking forward to blessings yet to come.
May we welcome your lavish love.
May we cast off the small, vindictive god our fears have made.
May the grace and peace of Christ bless you now and in the days ahead".
 

The Joy of the Gospel

by  J. Michael Sparough, SJ – ©photo by Jaime Trueblood from The Nativity Story

Let us bid goodbye to a sourpuss faith,
Living stoic of soul with a vinegar face,
Mourning each evening in funereal processions,
Grabbing and grasping our precious possessions.
Let us rejoice in the joy of the gospel!
For who could believe what we have been told?
To a woman quite young and another quite old
Was born the Baptizer who leapt in her womb,
And the holy Messiah who danced from His tomb.
Let us rejoice in the joy of the gospel!
Let us bid goodbye to a pickle-faced fast,
Feast on His mercy with a joy that will last.
Grace grows within us when Good News is shared,
When hearts spring open and sorrows are bared.
Let us rejoice in the joy of the gospel!
Our God Child comes like a mustard seed,
Conceived in secret in hearts who believe.
For we reap so much more, so much more, than we've sown
Thru a power so much greater, always greater, than our own.
Let us rejoice in the joy of the gospel!

Happy New Year - With love,
All of us on the Regional Council - CLCNW