Hi there, everyone! It’s Angel! My dad’s been doing a lot for Advent & Christmas so I wanted to help him out and write today’s column. Let me start out by wishing you all a Happy New Year! As we begin this new year, we enter, in many ways, into the unknown. While we certainly have our hopes, plans, & dreams for today & the upcoming 364 days of this year, in many ways the course of this new year is unknown. We don’t know all the joys & successes that will come our way. We don’t know the sorrows & challenges that will arise. The seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, & months ahead are a story just waiting to unfold.

   As we enter into the unknown story of the year ahead, we do so by celebrating our Blessed Mother. Mary was one who embraced the unknown, from the visit of the Angel Gabriel, to the birth of her Son in the manger at Bethlehem, Mary, as we heard in the Gospel today, “pondered all these things in her heart.” When Gabriel brought the message that she was chosen to be the Mother of God. When she placed her Son in the manger, she didn’t understand all that His life would entail. When the shepherds visited her, she reflected on their message.

   Mary leads us to Her Son, her greatest glory is NOT in drawing attention to herself, but in helping us to know and love her Son ever more deeply. Like her, as we enter into the unknown of the year ahead, the events that we have planned out, and everything that will happen that at the moment we cannot plan and we may not understand, may we journey through it all, reflecting on it in our heart. May we bring all that this new year brings to our God in prayer. When we struggle, when we don’t understand, when we rejoice, when we celebrate, may we place it all before our God and invite Him to help us see how God’s plan is unfolding in and through it all.

   Have a Blessed week & a Blessed New Year!