Standing Together

By Marian W., Alum

Warm faces. Overflowing hearts. Beautiful liturgies. Delicious meals. Meaningful moments.

This is why I come back year after year for Con-solatio’s annual family reunion in Brooklyn. For me, it is the most nourishing, sacred, joyful way to ring in the new year.

Every detail is planned out with care as we enter into our simple daily rhythm of prayer, community, and compassion. We prepare meals in teams, feast family style, do dishes together, and head out on visits to our lonely friends, to an art gallery, to an ice skating rink. We sing to beautify the times of prayer and Mass with sacred choral chanting. There is a deep sense of home, unity, and rest.

I feel strengthened to return to the cruxes of my daily life, bolstered by this anointing alive within us…I can hear it in Maria’s laugh, Selen’s Turkish-Arabic song; I can recognize it in the merriment of late-night card games and the generosity of the one who served us special cocktails with delight. I see Mama Mary’s compassion in the loving face of Mela, in the mercy of confession, in the beauty of the chanted Gloria, in the meeting of an artist who paints a baby and a dove as an act of repentance. His humility pierces our hearts with truth and goodness. He shares that the relationship between the infant and the bird is the most difficult part to paint. The cosmic space between the two. Here we stand with him in the tension, the cross between Heaven and earth, between birth and flight. Stabat Mater.

We stand together.

With Mary.

Ringing in 2024 with Adoration of our Lord-come-in-the-flesh, celebrating with the splendor of dance and the sparkles of a champagne toast between friends of many cultures.

We are joined and we are at home, waiting together in hopeful anticipation for all the newness of life God promises in this new year.