Begin Again
2nd Sunday of Christmas,
Cobh
4 January 2026
My friends,
The late Brendan Kennelly has a poem with the title ‘Begin’ with which some of you are familiar. It’s a simple, short poem in which he asks,
“Begin again to the summoning birds
to the sight of the light at the window….
Every beginning is a promise
born in light and lying in dark….
Begin to the loneliness that cannot end
Since it perhaps is what makes us begin….”
In other lines he encourages us to look around us and recognise the stirrings of life’s energy and new yet unimagined possibilities.
He concludes,
“Though we live in a world that dreams of ending
that always seems about to give in
Something that will not acknowledge conclusion
insists that we forever begin.”
Those thoughts of the poet are worth considering, as we face into a New Year. Its thoughts are positive, yet realistic – there’s a candid admission of the ordinary and everyday light and dark that we go through. He appeals as it were to us to see and understand, these ordinary everyday things as the stuff of life’s richness. Not doing so, we risk missing out on what gives life its grace and purpose.
With this 2nd Sunday, we are drawing to a close the whole Advent/Christmas cycle. For all its light and colour, we’re happy to let go of it – we’ve taken our pause. Even nature will gradually invite us to get into the light of life. Please God, we will do so – each of us doing so in the ways we feel called by the Lord to deepen our love of him and his ways. A sure path for us has been set out before us, through our Advent/Christmas journey. It is for us to generously accept his invitation – to take to heart the new insight and awareness, that we have come to. Then, patiently seek to be faithful in our joy.
The words in the 1st Reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes are worth cherishing.
“From eternity, in the beginning, he created me, and for eternity, I shall remain.”
We find that assurance of God’s love in the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel today.
“He came to his own domain, and his own people did not accept him.
But to all who did accept him
He gave power to become children of God.”
John 1:11-12
My friends, the life in the Spirit, which we seek to live, in, an increasingly secular surrounding is naturally more challenging but that should not deter us because God’s grace will always abide with us. Knowing that we choose to live in a joyful fidelity. Doing so, frees us from any sense of resentment or bitterness. On the contrary our witness to the faith within us will be all the more credible and authentic
“That will explain why I, having once heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus, and the love that you show towards all the saints, have never failed to remember you in my prayers and to thank God for you.
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him.
May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit.”
Ephes 1: 15-16
