Happy New Year! This may be the wrong time for me to ask a question … what with our thoughts being on how we will celebrate this evening. But as the old year passes and a new one begins, it’s really a very appropriate time for this particular question. You don’t need to answer it out loud – or, even after Mass – to tell your spouse what your answer was. My question is this: how many of your New Year’s resolutions have you already broken? And here it is: … 2012 hasn’t started yet, and you’ve already failed in how you had planned to change your behavior.
I hope you noticed I did not ask you what you resolved to do, what you promised to change. Some people would encourage you to tell someone else exactly what your New Year’s resolutions are. They believe, in this way, you’ll feel guilty about breaking them and this will force you to keep them longer than you might otherwise have done. However, I believe keeping New Year’s resolutions – or any other promises for that matter – is not about feeling guilty when you break them. Rather, resolutions and promises are about how you, yourself, want to change. It’s a matter of what is in your heart and not about what guilt feelings you might have in your mind.
Today’s gospel reading makes this quite clear. Surely Mary and Joseph did not feel guilty that she had given birth in a stable in Bethlehem rather than in the comforts of their own home in Nazareth. They did not feel guilty that those who spread the good news about their baby were strangers, mere lowly shepherds, rather than their close friends and family. Instead of feeling guilty and wanting the comforts of their home and the safety of the past, Mary reflected on these events in her own heart.
In her heart. You may recall that the Latin word for Heart is “Cor” … C,O,R. And if you add an E, in English it becomes Core … the center of your being. Mary reflected on these events in the center of her being, her own core. And we are called upon to do the same. It is in the center of each of us that change is to be made. It is in our center, in our heart, that resolutions and promises are to be made.
And what resolutions are called for, what changes should we seek – not only as the New Year begins, but each day of our lives? I would suggest these resolutions, these self-made promises, are the ones associated with the true Christmas season which still remains with us. Ones associated with the gifts the Christchild brought into our world some 2000 years ago. I would suggest our major resolutions, our changes, should involve his gift of love. His gift of reminding us we are to love God and our neighbor and our self. This is the change we need to make. To resolve I will love God more. To resolve I will increase my love for my family, my friends and all whom I meet. To resolve I will love myself more – by treating my body the way a temple of God should be treated.
I leave the specific resolutions up to you. They differ for each one of us. They relate to our prayer life, to our participation at every Eucharistic celebration. Our changes relate to how we interact with others: what attitudes we express about everyone we meet; what behavior we exhibit toward them. Our promises about our addictions which control us – they need to be addressed by each one of us, and not be initiated or delayed because of the nagging of others. Changes must occur within our own core, within our own heart.
What we seek is, indeed, what is called “metanoia,” the deep down, inner change of our being, our core. And what else do we need to change? What other gift of the Christchild are we called to open and use. I would suggest, in addition to love, there is the gift of forgiveness.
Again, forgiveness of what others have done to us. Forgiveness of what we have done against others. And, yes, sometimes the need to forgive God for the events in which we perceive he has harmed us. Perhaps by the death of a loved one. Perhaps by the loss of something else we held dear to us. Jesus brought us the gift of forgiveness and desires we share this gift with everyone we meet. He urges us to resolve not only to love, but also to forgive … for the two are parts of one another.
To love is to forgive. To forgive is to love. Both require our own action. An action demanded each moment of our lives. Resolutions demand on-going actions. They are not made for a start in the future. They are made for the present moment. For you see, the present moment is all we mortals have. We cannot change the past. Our past actions may influence what we do in the present. But the past need not control us. And we cannot control the future. We may influence what might happen in the future, but we cannot guarantee what will specifically be the result of our current action.
The only time we humans have is the ever-present, the ever-holy: Now. It is in each moment that our resolution is kept or broken. It is in each moment that our resolution is continued or re-made. Breaking a New Year’s resolution need not be permanent. Every moment we can promise what we will do. How we are to love. How we are to forgive. Each failure can be merely temporary. A failure endures only when we allow it to endure. For each broken resolution, we can begin anew. We can forgive our temporary – our time-bound – failure and continue on our path with Christ.
We recall how Paul reminded the Galatians: “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, Abba, Father; [Abba, Daddy.] So [we] are no longer [slaves] … but heirs through God.” We are no longer controlled slaves, but rather we are now joined with God in his love and forgiveness as his adopted children. We remain so every moment of our lives; in each moment of the ever-present, ever-holy nowness of our lives with him.
And so, at the beginning of the year of our Lord, 2012 – on the celebration of the solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God – we might conclude with the words from the Book of Numbers she, herself, might have heard as she reflected on the magnificent events of her own life. “The Lord bless you and keep you! The Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you! The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace!” Now… and in every precious moment of the New Year – and in every day lived with the love and forgiveness of God.
Mary, the Mother of God; January 1, 2012
Num 6:22-27; Gal 4:4 – 7; Lk 2:16-21