In historical Rome, Janus was the 2-confronted god of beginnings and endings, but in addition of transitions and passages. It is 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. While I’ve not been one to make New Year’s resolutions, I can recognize that it may be good to take inventory of 1’s life in a fashion not not like what St. Ignatius meant by a “general 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 outdoors, and thereby to foster in myself a discerning angle towards what God is attempting to do via my free cooperation with the divine will.
What Ignatius understood was that it is very important dedicate time and a spotlight to huge questions: How is my life going? Where am I with God? What is getting in the way in which of the nice good that God desires to do with my life? What must be a supply of pleasure? What blind spots get in the way in which of my celebrating what’s treasured?
The picture of Janus jogs my memory that our imaginative and prescient is incessantly double. We look backwards on previous experiences, generally with gratitude and different instances with remorse. We additionally look ahead, generally with hope and different instances with concern. 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 spotlight to as a way to obtain what our custom calls a “theological virtue,” particularly the present of hope?
Perhaps January generally is a time of reframing our imaginative and prescient, in order that we see extra clearly what God is doing in our lives. Perhaps this or that issue, nonetheless actual, is small compared to the nice good that our affected person endurance will yield. Perhaps this or that pleasure, nonetheless consoling, is getting in the way in which of one thing deeper that God desires to carry forth in us.
Let our most simple decision, then, be that we attend to what God desires to indicate us. Perhaps that may imply rededicating ourselves to time in prayer or worship. Perhaps it should imply larger attentiveness to these we love. Perhaps it should imply searching 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 could carry forth pleasure in our lives.