Welcome to a very unhappy planet. I will be 96 in 2025 and this is the most unhappy world that I have experienced since World War II, 1941 – 1945. In truth, there were 2.3 billion human beings in 1941, and now we count 8 billion of us. Despite the hundred million or so who were savaged by the wars and political violence of the last century, the good news is that there now 6 billion more of us to love and take care of today.
But the planet is limping along, not with old age like me, but with a gruesome lack of love for each other, and of our incredible, miraculous, grace filled home, Mother Earth, and of all of her wounded life-forms.
There are more of us now, and more to fear from climate-caused disasters from heat, windstorms, droughts and floods. There are wars and violence on every continent caused by insane usurpers of power over their fellow human beings. There is almost universal rejection of refugees seeking for a legitimate refuge.
The above is the unhappy part of 2025. Now for the hopeful part. Two weeks ago, in an Advent Meditation, I was moved by a picture from the Webb space telescope which showed the Big Bang 13 billion years ago at the beginning of the universe. It showed a giant galaxy of galaxies still spinning out to the ends of the universe. As the picture glowed, the first words of Genesis rang out where God says: “Let there be light,” yes, trillions of atomic explosions still happening right now.
For 13 billion years, the same explosion is still going on because in God there is no time, no 13 billion years, just the “NUNC STANS” of Thomas Aquinas, the 13th-century scholastic philosopher, who taught the “ETERNAL NOW” of God.
In the 2nd picture of the meditation, at the same time the universe is exploding into a galaxy of galaxies, John’s Gospel says “In the beginning was ‘the Word’, and ‘the Word’ was with God. I like Phillips’ translation which says, “In the beginning, God expressed Himself.” And John goes on to say that everything that God makes is somehow a symbol, an expression, of Himself. He makes each of us as the Bible says, ‘in His own image and likeness.’
In the 3rd picture, a great star shines over Bethlehem, and Luke says, “Do not be afraid! Listen, I bring you glorious news of great joy which is for all the people. This very day, in David’s town, a Savior has been born for you. You will find a baby, wrapped up and lying in a manger. (Lk. 2: 11-12)’ So, at the same moment that God creates the stars, he also expresses Himself through His Son, who becomes a human being. This is the mystery that we can never understand on this side of eternity: that Jesus is the symbol of God and of all of us as children of God, who existed in God from all eternity with Him. It is not something to understand, but something to wonder about throughout our lifetimes. Faith teaches us that we existed in God before we were born in the flesh, and we will exist, in God, after we die in the flesh.
This is the thought with which to begin 2025. We need this perspective of eternity unto eternity to face the daily struggles of our present lives. There was a young Jesuit seminarian named Aloysius Gonzaga who died of tuberculosis in the 1500’s. He was famous for saying, “What is this compared to eternal glory?” There will be many challenges to our love and service to each other, to our country, to our world this year. St. Aloysius had it right. “What is this compared to eternal glory? Amen.”
Sal Umana 