To Father Pontius de Senna, newfound mentor and friend.
O’GOD how often I have loved You, O’Lord, as you stand strongly present at every turning of my days while the sands of time cascade and pile away. Now again the Saintly chords are strung and their year is renewed, and eagerly do your children speak of change, of new tidings, and of aspirations fashioned by their own merit and resolve. But I ask you, O’GOD, what is the worth of a new Saintly-year if the heart remains old and stagnant? What divine profit is there in counting days anew if the soul wanes from righteous path?
For I know verily, and certainly within myself, the capriciousness of the will of Man. Our hearts, made for You — does not always seek You. Rather, it finds itself curved inward, loving itself more than facing piety, taking delight in fleeting things rather instead of eternal joy. This is the plague of our spirits: a disorderly love away from You. I see, O’GOD, how much those around me desire much, though how poorly they love; seeking fullness where there is only scarcity. Thus, even when they sought the resolution to change, they remained divided— one part longing for You, another clinging tightly to habit. How often do we promise renewal, only to return once more to what has sinfully enslaved us?
Yet You, O’GOD, do not abandon the restless and neglect naught our sin-riddled heart. You call us not merely to improve our lives, but be made new. Growth is found not in outward alteration alone, nor in the discipline of the flesh while the soul remains forsaken. True growth, it is rebirth, where the turning of our will toward You is our pivot into healing - that slow reforming of divine love. We are not struck with rebirth once. For it did not come to me and never again; it returns each day we surrender anew. For we are not transformed in a moment nor truly ever cemented in transition, but renewed as often as our heart turns back to You.
O’GOD for my own path — I shall confess this plainly: I did not raise myself. Those around me shepherded me, and from spirit did they further raise my will. Once weak, even if awakened, my knowledge in all its clarity was powerless. Only Your grace accomplished what I could not. From my spine did you beat out my pride, rid of my weakness, and gave me the power to love what I could hardly ever imagine to grasp. Faithfulness, then, is not confidence in oneself, but humility before You. It is not a foul boast of achievement but the trust of dependence. Without you, O’GOD, I fall back into myself; with it, I am carried forth in a flurry that even when I stumble those very currents carry me. We all do.
When I acknowledged these truths of the world, to love You above all else, everything else found place in my life. My loves, once scattered and disordered, were gathered and allowed to flourish. No longer did I cling to the anxious idea of stagnant resolution, desperate in that world. Fearing what it lost, my heart was heavy and unnurtured. O’GOD, in your love did I find salvation and continued transformation, learning that growth is not the absence of contentedness and accomplishment, but the root of ordering it. When You are loved first, all other loves become light, more truthful, and no longer enslaving.
Therefore, let the turning of this Saintly-year not deceive us. It does not erase the past, nor does it allow us to save the soul through stagnant resolve. It is simply a reminder that the sands continue to cascade and trickle forward, and we are called to move with it — toward You. Renewal is unyielding. Transition is continual. The heart must be turned again and again, until it lays in rest fully within You.
It is you who crafted us from your four sons, O’GOD, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You. I pray this Saintly-year shall not be a promise of self-mastery and arbitrary growth, but the confession of need. Let no celebration of strength outshine the renewal of our surrender. For when we turn toward You, we become naught someone new. O’GOD, we become someone who we were always meant to be. United with You.
Child of GOD,
Kieran Victor Elendil