The big question amongst my circle this week has been: can we call it … is winter over?  These few days of warmth and light have signalled the promise of things to come.  The icy mornings have become a memory, and we are rushing toward the new life that awaits us in spring.  

There’s something about those cold, dark days that call us to reflection, I think.  Many of us lean toward introspection and our energies necessarily turn to home.  We move into a time of Hygge – a word that emerges from the Danish experience and describes a sense of homeliness, cosiness, being present.  No doubt it arises from the experience of their very long, dark, cold winters where the focus is home.  Bring on the slow cooker!

And how different are our winter gardens – trees finally giving up their leaves, replaced with the beautiful scent of daphne, the fragile blooms of cyclamen, the sunny faces of pansies, primulas, violas and then the early shoots of bulbs gently emerging into the light.  We may survey our gardens and see that winter exposes their gaps giving way for a new garden imagination! 

As we grow older, we also appreciate that winter is symbolic of times in our lives.  Those times when even the brightest sunshiny day is enfolded in cloudiness.  When the nights are long and even the dawn doesn’t seem to bring relief.  These are the times when we identify with the sparseness of winter – our lives have been made bare.  We have a sense of dormancy, and our spirits darkness shrouds our spirits.  And then, when the necessary time of sadness and mourning has taken its course, our hearts re-open and a sense of joy, albeit fragile at first, once again shines. 

This is the second of three Ordinary Time Sundays where Psalm 34 is proclaimed.  For three consecutive Sundays we will sing ‘Taste and see the goodness of the Lord’ and although the remaining verses differ, the first will be repeated: 

I will bless the Lord at all times,
His praise always on my lips;
In the Lord my soul shall make its boast.
The humble shall hear and be glad. (Ps 33:2-3)

We are also mid-way through a sustained reflection on Chapter 6 from John’s Gospel (17th-21st Sundays in Ordinary Time).  We began with the story of the feeding of the large crowd (17th Sunday) then we move into what is described as the Bread of Life Discourse.  For three Sundays we will be invited to ponder, along with the crowd and the disciples, how Jesus is revealed to us as the living Bread and what that means for how we are to live.  On the fifth Sunday we will discover that some of the disciples turned away from Jesus because they could not accept his teachings.  It is Peter, on this occasion, who identified Jesus as the Holy One of God. 

And I couldn’t help but think that these readings speak powerfully into the winter experience.  We are impatient and, probably for our own survival, we want to skip through the painful, bitter and heart-breaking winters of our lives.  But the psalm is reminding us that even in these times the goodness of the Lord is with us.  The readings are reminding us that if we keep our hearts fixed on the Lord, we will find sustenance.  That although there are times when grief will bring us to our knees and our lives will be made bare – we are not alone, and it will eventually be OK.  This is the challenge that is on offer, I think.  To not skip too quickly through these times but to allow them to soften us, to make us kinder, more patient. 

And perhaps we can, the words of Pope Francis might also help: 

“To Christians, the future does have a name, and its name is Hope.  Feeling hopeful does not mean to be optimistically naïve and ignore the tragedy humanity is facing.  Hope is the virtue of a heart that doesn’t lock itself into darkness, that doesn’t dwell on the past, does not simply get by in the present, but is able to see a tomorrow.” (2017 Ted Talk, Pope Francis)

May we taste and see the goodness of the Lord and may our winter pilgrimage pave the way for the inspiration of new life to enter every heart. 

By Cathy Jenkins

Published: 16 August 2024