There’s a nice New Year’s Day reflection from the Pope in the Christmas Magnificat. It was written long before he became pope, credited to a 1985 book called Dogma and Preaching.

The year is ending... We feel both the melancholy and the consolation of our own transiency.... As we look back, difficult days are transfigured in memory, and the now almost forgotten distress leaves us more peaceful and confident, more composed in the face of present threats, for these too will pass. The consolation of transiency: Nothing lasts, no matter how important it claims to be.

But this consoling thought...also has its discouraging and saddening aspect. Nothing lasts, and therefore along with the old year not only difficulties but much that is beautiful has passed away, and the the more we move beyond the midpoint of our lives, the more poignantly we feel this change of what was once future and then present into something past. We cannot say to any moment: “Stay a while! You are so lovely!”Anything that is within time comes and then passes away....

A new beginning is something precious; it brings hope and possibilities yet undisclosed.... What can we as Christians say at this moment of transition? First of all, we can do the very human thing the moment urges upon us: we can use the time of reflection in order to stand aside and widen our vision, thus gaining inner freedom and a patient readiness to move on again.