Calls for peace seem to ring hollow as we enter into a new year.

Mere memory is not enough for the year we have just lived. Misty-eyed nostalgia would be a sin. It would fall far short of the mark.

This entire year turned on three unexpected words — “ground-penetrating radar.”

This unforgettable year, this annus horribilis, is mercifully drawing to the end, but the virus that has so consumed our lives is not.

For sheer numbers, there has never been a decade like the 2010s for saint-making. That’s because Pope Francis canonized over 800 in one go when he declared St. Antonio Primaldo and his 812 companions (martyred in 1480 by an invading Ottoman army in Oranto, southern Italy) saints on May 12, 2013.

The crisis, the kairos moment, the crux of the matter, the hinge of history — none of these are easily discernible, usually. But for Catholics, this last decade has been unusual.

Not many 18-year-olds can say they’ve written for a national newspaper. And fewer still can say they’ve been given the chance to not only report on current events, but to give their opinions on relevant social issues.

Over and over throughout 2016, Pope Francis spoke of walls and bridges. It is an apt metaphor for much of what transpired in the Catholic world in 2016.

The easy way to look back on 2015, or any year of news, is to list off all the bombings, shootings, riots, droughts, hurricanes, floods and famines. We can always find a parade of disaster.

Every year is a collection of beginnings. In 2012 we began to pray a new English translation of the Mass. We began to call Toronto’s Archbishop Thomas Collins Cardinal Collins.