In historical Rome, Janus was the two-faced god of beginnings and endings, but in addition of transitions and passages. It’s due to this fact no shock that they related the brand new 12 months—the month following the winter solstice—with this determine.
Even acknowledging the Northern hemispheric bias of this imagery, the notion that January is a time of transitions is apt. Whereas I’ve not been one to make New Yr’s resolutions, I can recognize that it may be good to take inventory of 1’s life in a way not not like what St. Ignatius meant by a “normal Examen.” He used this time period to explain the try to tell apart the ideas that come up inside myself from people who come from exterior, and thereby to foster in myself a discerning angle towards what God is making an attempt to do by means of my free cooperation with the divine will.
What Ignatius understood was that it is very important dedicate time and a focus to massive questions: How is my life going? The place am I with God? What’s getting in the best way of the good good that God desires to do with my life? What must be a supply of pleasure? What blind spots get in the best way of my celebrating what’s treasured?
The picture of Janus jogs my memory that our imaginative and prescient is ceaselessly double. We glance backwards on previous experiences, typically with gratitude and different instances with remorse. We additionally look ahead, typically with hope and different instances with worry. If we consider January as a time for a normal Examen, although, we carry a discerning angle to this double imaginative and prescient. What does God need me to see as I look backward? What emotions will I give time and a focus to with the intention to obtain what our custom calls a “theological advantage,” specifically the present of hope?
Maybe January could be a time of reframing our imaginative and prescient, in order that we see extra clearly what God is doing in our lives. Maybe this or that problem, nonetheless actual, is small compared to the good good that our affected person endurance will yield. Maybe this or that pleasure, nonetheless consoling, is getting in the best way of one thing deeper that God desires to carry forth in us.
Let our most elementary decision, then, be that we attend to what God desires to indicate us. Maybe that can imply rededicating ourselves to time in prayer or worship. Maybe it’s going to imply better attentiveness to these we love. Maybe it’s going to imply looking for out those that are hurting or weak. In any case, allow us to title as our need that on this means of reframing, God might carry forth pleasure in our lives.
