In the Baroque period, the great court preachers used to recall at the beginning of the year the principles of good governance of a Christian matrix (safeguarding the common good, looking after the poor and the weak, contributing to the tranquility and happiness of all). This tradition is now continued by bishops and popes with their “messages” of January 1st. For years, papal messages on the occasion of “World Peace Day” have had a special resonance. “A disarmed and disarming peace, humble and constant. It comes from God, the God who loves us all unconditionally”: this is, as is well known, the great desire of Pope Leo XIV in his first message of this type.
I will limit myself to expressing **some personal wishes for the new year on a micro and macro level.**
**At the micro level**, I would like to recall the ideas of Saint Augustine. In his “Confessions,” he wrote the famous sentence about **time**: “What is time? If no one asks me, I know it. If I want to explain it, I do not know it.” The past as what no longer is, the future as what is not yet, and the present as the fleeting moment between the past and the future exist only in our perception; for God, all is simultaneous (an eternal present). In the Augustinian tradition, it is recommended to heal the wounds of the past through forgiveness, **to live intensely in the present through good works and love, and to confidently entrust the future to God.**
St. Augustine’s reflections on the changing of the year do not only revolve around time: «We were made for you, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you» (Conf. I, 1). This famous quote at the beginning of the «Confessions» expresses the fundamental longing of the human being, who only finds its fullness in God («God alone is enough», is also attributed in this sense to St. Teresa). Thus, the changing of the year is also an occasion to examine one’s own «restlessness of the heart» in these otherwise turbulent times and reorient it towards the essential. For this it is necessary **to overcome egoism, sickly self-love, again and again.**
The family and friends circle can also be good for keeping our “restless heart”. For example, anticipating that time spoken of by the prophets of Israel and Christianity: a time when we will invite one another “under the fig tree” (Zech 3:10) and enjoy peaceful fellowship. Whenever we do this in the personal sphere, whatever the reason, we experience something of the Kingdom of God, toward which we are moving with our restless heart.
Of course, there is no idyll on earth. Because we are not on Mount Tabor and we cannot build three permanent tents here. When we open the window (the news in the media are today the window to the great world), we realize **at a macro level** that **war, lies, and deceit, or the law of the strongest, seem to set the pattern…** precisely now, when great powers such as the United States, Russia, and China appear to be dividing the world among themselves… and the European Union and other blocs show themselves indecisive and powerless.
Yes, we could tend towards pessimism in the face of the world’s course, because the production of weapons increases and the predator within human nature has still not been fully domesticated, neither by the great religions nor by culture. As far as violence is concerned, history seems in many cases to be an eternal return of the same, only with increasingly lethal weapons. “What was, can happen again”: that was, in essence, the answer of the philosopher Theodor Adorno to the question of whether something like “Auschwitz” could be repeated. That’s why we must remain vigilant!
But if we look more closely, there are also hopeful developments in our world, as can be read these days in the media:
-We live longer: global life expectancy has increased considerably since 2000.
-Mortality rates for children under 15 have been halved since 2000.
-Extreme poverty has also been reduced: in 2000 it was 36%, today it is 10%.
-Thanks, among other things, to solar energy, today there are many more people than before with access to electricity: today it is 92% of the world’s population, compared to 78% in 2000. In Rwanda, for example, grid connection increased from 6% to 64%.
-68% of girls attend secondary school today, compared to 47% in 2000.
-The cancer survival rate has doubled. Myocardial infarctions are less deadly, today only in 10%.
And so we could find many good news that make us think that the unit of the human family advances little by little.
**Therefore, at a macro level, I wish**
**-that we be** citizens politically sensitive to the problems of our country and our world;
-that in 2026 **we promote positive advances** with our time, our mind, and also with our money…
It’s not that we, as individuals, can’t do anything. Faced with the temptation of pessimism, we should follow the advice of Aristotle:
“We cannot change the wind,
but we can adjust the sails.”
Mariano Delgado*
Digital Religion
*Mariano Delgado is emeritus professor of History of the Church at the Faculty of Theology of Fribourg (Switzerland), where he was Dean twice. Between 2021-2025 he was Dean of Classe VII (Religions) at the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (Salzburg).
English version translated with AI