Fr Ted’s New Year Message

What Ho! Just one “Ho” as Santa has taken the other three for his “Ho,Ho, Hoing “ all over the shop.

So what of 2012? Well, first of all it hasn’t happened, just a teeny, weeny, teansy bit, depending on the day  you are reading this.

2012 the pundits say will be difficult. Any more difficult than other years, I wonder? I think not. Our orthodox brothers and sisters have a splendid idea that life, especially the spiritual life, is always a struggle, a contest in the arena, amply used by St. John the Divine as the setting for his horrifically imaginative description of the contest, with its final scenes of triumph for those who have got through successfully.

So, my brothers and sisters, friends, all of you enter 2012 with the sure knowledge that this world is the arena in which we display our ability to succeed against whatever odds circumstances pile up around us.

Curiously for those in favour of odds, I believe we have a superb “odds-on” situation whenever we slot into the teaching of Our Lord. We are “on a winner” what eve5r is happening around.

Just in case I seem too gloomy with thoughts of struggle and so on, we have the splendidly expensive treat in 2012 of the London Olympics which is not all about winning but about enjoying the contest.  There are so many arenas, in terms of contest there are some which are about reaching out and moving towards perfection and beauty – the synchronised swimmers, ice dancers, floor exercising gymnasts, and dressage horses and riders. My brother and I were lucky in being given tickets to the 1948 Olympics in London. One of the pervading images was of the sheer beauty and elegance in motion of the great Dutch athlete, Fanny Blankers-Koen, winning the 220 yards (it was pre-metric then, I seem to remember), blonde hair streaming behind her.

So let’s all enter 2012’s arena with style ourselves, ready to give it all we have, and to enjoy it. For sure something beautiful and worth having will emerge for us 8if we do.