The Gate of the Year

By Father Woods

This last day of the calendar year is the Feast of the Holy Family. On the first of January the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Perhaps a reflection during this Christmas Season on “time” is appropriate. The poem and commentary by Wikipedia.

“The Gate of the Year” is the popular name given to a poem by Minnie Louise Haskins. The title given to it by the author was “God Knows”. The poem, published in 1908, was part of a collection titled The Desert. It caught the public attention and the popular imagination when the then- Princess Elizabeth handed a copy to her father, King George VI, and he quoted it in his 1939 Christmas broadcast to the British Empire.

The poem was widely acclaimed as inspirational, reaching its first mass audience in the early days of the Second World War. Its words remained a source of comfort to the Queen for the rest of her life, and she had its words engraved on brass plaques and fixed to the gates of the King George VI Memorial Chapel at Windsor Castle, where the King was interred. Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother was also buried here in 2002, and the words of “The Gate of the Year” were read out at her funeral.
God Knows

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

So heart be still:

What need our little life Our human life to know,

If God hath comprehension? In all the dizzy strife

Of things both high and low, God hideth His intention.

God knows. His will

Is best. The stretch of years Which wind  ahead,  so dim To  our  imperfect  vision, Are clear to God. Our fears Are premature;  In Him,

All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until

God moves to lift the veil From our impatient eyes, When, as the sweeter features Of Life’s stern face we hail, Fair beyond all surmise

God’s thought around His creatures Our mind shall fill.

May you and your family have a happy and blessed New Year!