31.12.2014
New Year Message From Archbishop Michael Jackson
Day follows day and night follows night. This is the simplest pattern of life as we know it and as everyone lives it, the world over. Some of us are asleep by midnight. Some of us find it difficult to get to sleep at all and settle for no more than fitful rest all through the night. But at midnight, whether we are asleep or not, something changes when we move from one day to the next day. At any given point somewhere in the world there is darkness and somewhere else there is light.
New Year’s Eve is one of those special midnights. After the clock has chimed, everything is in a real sense the same and yet time has moved forward. Perhaps one of the most useful things that a New Year can show us is our need to learn to embrace the future. It carries us forward with it. It introduces us to new possibilities, new people, new perspectives. All of these new experiences ahead of us may well frighten us, but an attitude of trust and friendship will go a long way.
For 2015 we remember the same individuals and communities who have suffered terribly throughout 2014 at home and worldwide. We remember the loved ones who are ill and those whom we have lost from our sight in the course of the year past. We ought to remember also the warm summer wind on our faces, the sunglasses to shield our eyes from the brightness, the laughter and the joy of those who matter to us at home and abroad, the ways we have to communicate with them, the positive attitude of children and young people.
We remember the points of celebration that have brought communities together over the past year in the United Dioceses. And we ought to give thanks for the sense of community that is still alive and abroad throughout Irish society.
I wish all of you everything that is best for 2015.
Michael Jackson, Archbishop of Dublin