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Message from Our Pastor Fr. Aaron Pierre, S.J.
For All That Has Been, Thanks
The turning of a new year always invites us to gratitude. And yet I often find New Year’s celebrations can fill us with a mix of relief and weariness relief that we made it through, and weariness from everything we carried: work schedules, bills, worries about family back home, immigration stress, grief, doctor visits, school meetings, and the everyday labor of simply keeping life going. And yet… here we are. Still standing. Still loving. Still praying, even if it was sometimes just, “Lord, help.”
Gratitude at the end of the year is not pretending everything was easy. Gratitude is telling the truth and noticing where God was quietly present, even there. God does not dwell only in the joyful moments the quinceañera, the new baby, the job promotion, the family party. God also draws near in the hard moments: the day you felt alone, the week you didn’t have enough, the argument, the sleepless nights. Not because God enjoys suffering, but because God loves us too much to let us go through it alone.
Dag Hammarskjöld offered a simple prayer that can hold a whole year in two sentences: “For all that has been, thanks. For all that is to be, yes!” That first line “for all that has been, thanks” doesn’t mean “I liked everything.” It means: “I received this year as it was, a gift from God. I learned. I survived. I loved as best I could.”
I invite you to set aside a little time in these first days of January. Light a candle and sit with God for a few minutes, prayerfully looking back over 2025. Ask for a simple grace: “Help me see where you were present, even in the struggles.” And give God the space to respond. Then, at the end, open your hands toward 2026 and say to God, “For all that is to be, yes!”
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