DECEMBER, JANUARY, FEBRUARY; A Wind of Change!!!

Between “To Be” or “Not to Be”, I’m highly inclined “To Be”, because in this way, I realize
myself fully; I give a meaning to my life, I re-define my motives and continually question myself
about the way to which I’m being led by my present lifestyle, having in mind that I have not
gone this far to retreat.

Sometimes it is imbedded in our nature to create an imbalance in the ecosystem, for, “each day
continues to hide joy when we are distinguished and sadness when we aren’t” (H.E. Paul BIYA,
10-09-2019, 20:15).

On the other hand, Antoine de Saint Exupery exhorts us to give meaning to people’s lives.
Therefore, it is clearly understood that life is not an individual matter. Ubuntu says it clearly: “A
person is a person through other people” or more, “I am because We are”. Even in the word
“Abuse”, the main root is “Use”; and in the word “Amour”, there is an “Our”; By some means,
the enemy could be trusted. How? “To find without searching, you have to have searched for a
long time without finding”, said Gaston Bachelard.

“The inner self is renewed, from day to day…” 2Cor4: 16b; Or “Throw out then the old yeast
and be new dough… Let us celebrate… no longer with old yeast, which is sin and perversity, let
us have unleavened bread that is purity and sincerity…” 1Cor5: 7a.8b.

The end and beginning of a year are always moments of recollection, “Recolligere, Recollectio”,
meaning to gather again. Surely, we remember and gather together everything that happened to
us throughout the year; good as well as bad, our successes as well as our failures. These
constitute our Memories, in order to get set and enter the new year with a new spirit, completely
regenerated or afresh, anew…

Maroon holds that December is the time of Memories. And he hails those whom we met with in
the course of the year, and everything we went through; he hails those still present at the moment
despite the challenges and difficulties we underwent together; he hails those we lost on the way,
on this yearly journey, surely because we never understood that a candle loses nothing lighting
another one; or that when we master, we know no accident, and we don’t put others’ lives in
peril. Certainly, we often stood steadily on the fact that “My neighbour’s look impoverishes me”
as stated by Sartre; and as such, we forgot who took, held, kept us and was going to flourish us
there in everything i.e. Love. For that reason, Ghandi affirms that: “The golden rule of conduct is
mutual tolerance because we will never think the same way; we will only see part of the truth
and from different angles.”

A definition, a sense, a meaning is thus to be given by everyone to his month of December. It can
refer to Enjoyment, Christmas, Love, Friends, Fresh Start, Cold or Warmth (when having
someone to cuddle with) etc… At the end of the day, it is the Memories of the year which we
gathered altogether in December that help us breakthrough in the new year in order not to be “Un
soleil de Janvier” in January as the new year is begun.

Etymologically January is derived from the Latin word Januarius, equivalent to Janus, meaning
doorway, entrance. Moreover in the ancient Roman culture, it was considered a sacred month
due to the fact that Janus was a deity of door and beginnings, represented with two faces facing
each opposite direction i.e. one the front, the other the back. It is interpreted that, with his two
faces, Janus was able to look both into the past and the future.

As sacred as this month is still today, so also are our lives. By the very fact that we can make an
introspection deep within ourselves i.e. scrutinizing our past and bring forth our way forward to
growth looking at our littleness; thus, with our front face, embracing the future in a better and
brighter way. We are Janus in our lives today and that of those we meet.

We start living our future with the firm decision and conviction we make by means of our New
Year Resolutions, knowing fully well in whom we put our faith to realize them (Cf. 2Ti1: 12),
for, “No trial greater than human endurance has overcome you” 1Cor10: 13; God gives the
strength to escape and resist. And if we fall, His grace continues to lead us to conversion for
“where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” Rom5: 20.

As such, February corresponds to the Latin words “Februarius, Februa” meaning purification;
from the verb “Februare” i.e. to purify. February is therefore conceived as the month of
purification. For Martin Luther King, this purification consists in answering this question daily:
“But why then not ask oneself regularly if we navigate always closer to our choices and values,
or if we have indeed distanced ourselves?” It is also an exhortation to “Never let your eyelids
yield to sleep before having submitted to your reason all your actions of the day” (Poème Vers
d’Or).

After recollecting and gathering all the episodes of our year, making an introspection in them all,
discovering and figuring out the good from the bad, the achieved from the unachieved, we must
then give ourselves New Challenges in those Resolutions that we will be able to live and keep
faithful to by purifying ourselves, letting go of the past and looking up to the future, announcing
the “Lord’s Year” (Lk4: 19).

December, January and February are summarized for me in this encomium of Pope Francis:
Look at the Past with Gratitude, Live the Present with Passion, Embrace the Future with Hope.

Joseph Daniel BOAYÉHOK of Saint Joseph, Husband of Mary Sch.P