Look Back In Anger!

Fifty years ago John Osborne wrote a play called ‘Look Back in Anger’.  The title of the play came to me this week as I recalled meeting a lady at that time who had lived through two world wars and had to raise both her own children and later,  her grandchildren,  totally on her own.  At the end of her life I simply asked this beautiful serene lady: “Sarah, how did you do it?”  “I never looked back”, she said.  She certainly never looked back in anger.

Of course we all have good reason to be angry with life, with ourselves and with others. However it is also review time – a time to look back, back further than our own histories, back to the time when God entered human time, mine and yours.

Epiphany can mean a new insight, the way I view myself.  Today I am invited once more with the Magi, described as “wise” men, wise people,  to revisit the crib and perhaps find more reasons not to look back in anger, if only for today.

Fr. Michael McCullagh, C.M

6th January, 2008