Today there is no poem, just a reflection on a simple yet beautiful word.
Since my college days, I’ve focused less on picking new year’s resolutions and more on praying to God for a word of the year. It’s become a trend to pick a word that becomes a recurring reminder of how you want to grow in the new year. In past years, I’ve seen how the Holy Spirit guides me toward a word in prayer and uses it to bear fruit in my life.
With the mess that felt like 2023, I almost didn’t pick a word for this year; God, however, knew I needed a new mindset. After a whole year of feeling so fixated on suffering (and beating myself up for not always suffering well), I rediscovered the word that I’ve chosen for 2024:
This word felt obvious at first, since I spent many hours of 2023 writing my epic poem of Saint Brendan’s search for the lost Garden of Eden.
As I was researching the Hebrew root of the word, some meanings in particular struck me: luxury, finery. These words are such a stark contrast from the words often associated with the message of the Gospel: humility, poverty. But that’s the contrast of our mission on Earth vs our home in heaven. It is this call to humility and poverty that help us reach heaven, the ultimate outpouring of grandeur. While we are bound to suffer on Earth, God wants to give us a taste of that grandeur. We need only to ask for His blessings.
If 2023 was the year of suffering, then 2024 will be the year of little Edens… the year that I seek all the ways God wishes to lavish me. There may still be suffering this year, but this time I choose to see the slivers of heaven God wants to gift me in the midst of it.
“Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal” -Saint Thomas More
Accepting the invitation of God’s blessings will prepare my heart to return to Eden. A heart renewed will strengthen me in the journey on Earth. I pray that we all open ourselves to the possibility of God’s luxury.
Through Christ,
Steph Petters