Happy New Year! I say it again: Happy New Year! Sometimes Catholics find it a little strange that in the Church, New Year's Day began this week, rather than about a month from now. But when you come to think about it, it's our calendar that makes all the sense in the world and next month that makes little.
Our liturgical year traces the life of Christ, from the time when the Jews anxiously awaited His appearance (Advent proper), to His time in the womb, to His birth, to His being greeted by the shepherds and the angels, to His flight into Egypt and return, to His presentation and finding in the temple, to His forty days in the desert praying and fasting, to His baptism, to His public ministry, to His miracles, to His going up to Jerusalem and entering her on a donkey, to His Last Supper, to His agony, trial, crucifixion and death, to His resurrection, ascension, sending forth the Holy Spirit, and ultimately to His return in glory which we anticipated in a special way last week on the feast of Christ the King. This is what the liturgical year means. Jesus said to us twenty-one times in the Gospel, "Follow Me!" and each liturgical year we do just that, tracing His footsteps along the route of salvation history, trying to become more and more like Him whom we're following.
Compared to this, the civil year means very little. Does anyone know the reason why we celebrate the civil New Year on January 1? The historical reason is because in 46 BC, Julius Caesar decreed that the year would begin with the month of January, which would be the month dedicated to the pagan god Janus, the god with two faces looking in opposite directions. Caesar thought it was fitting, because, in a sense, Janus would be facing forward to the year beginning and backward learning the lessons of the year just passed. How much does this tradition mean to you? Yet most of us will make plans to celebrate it, even though it makes no more sense to us than the lyrics of Auld Lang Syne. Our new year in the Church, on the other hand, really does mean something. If we're accustomed to the good practice of making New Year's resolutions, now would be the fitting time to make them. Now's the time that the Church wants us to make them, so that we can make this new liturgical year a real "year of the Lord" (A.D.).
We start the liturgical year with the season of Advent, a word that literally means "coming toward." We mark the fact that the Lord is coming toward us and we need to prepare for His coming. The Lord Jesus came first in history, just over 2000 years ago in Bethlehem, and we're called in this time to prepare for Him so that we might not reject His presence like the inn-keepers in the ancient city of David. We prepare for that coming of Christ into the world each year, because no matter how many years the Lord will give us, we will never be able to exhaust the meaning of the incredible love involved in such an action. We will never be able to comprehend fully the mystery of God's becoming man so that we might become like God. During Advent, we also prepare for the Lord's coming at the end of history, at the culmination of time – on the clouds with power and glory. We're called to "lift up our souls" to the Lord, and to "stand erect and raise our heads," as Jesus tells us in the Gospel, "because our redemption is close at hand." And the best way we prepare for His coming in the past and His coming in the future is by embracing Him as He comes in the present, especially in the Eucharist. The same Lord Who was born in Bethlehem and Who will come on the clouds of heaven comes onto our altar and into our bodies and souls.
Those who are preparing well, Jesus says, are "vigilant at all times." They are those who "pray that they may have the strength to escape the imminent tribulations and to stand before the Son of Man." Those who are preparing poorly, on the other hand, allow their hearts to become drowsy from "carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life." Their hearts fall asleep either because of too much concern with human pleasures (carousing and drunkenness) or too much concern with human problems (the anxieties of daily life).
To prevent our hearts from falling asleep like the residents of ancient Bethlehem or those who will be caught off-guard at the end of time, we're called, with the Lord's help, to increase and grow in love, loving Christ as He loves us and loving others as Christ loves them.
It's not enough when we make a New Year's resolution simply to say, for example, "I want to lose weight." We need to say, at the same time, "I'm going to go on a diet," "I'm going to give up sweets," "I'm going to start eating better and getting exercise." In the spiritual life, too, if we wish to remain "awake" and "alert," we need to make and put into practice certain concrete intentions. I would like to propose for you today three resolutions to help you to live this Advent well and have it change your life. These resolutions are geared to helping you grow concretely in love of the Lord and stay more awake and vigilant in prayer, so that you will be ready to embrace the Lord whenever or wherever He comes.
The first is to go to daily Mass this Advent. The best way to prepare to meet the Lord in the past and in the future is to meet Him each day in His real presence in the Eucharist
The second resolution flows from the first: it is to "increase" and "abound" in personal prayer during this season. As a very practical point, please ensure that you pray more than you shop this season, and that you attend more holy hours with Jesus than you do parties with others.
The third and last resolution flows from the second: to pray as a family. As the early saints used to teach, our families – our homes – are called to be "domestic churches" where God is served, praised and loved above all. They're called, like churches, to be true "houses of prayer." Advent is a time when most of our homes normally take on a more outwardly Christian appearance, with the appearances of crèches and the various things that in our culture are associated with Christmas, from Christmas lights to Christmas trees. But all of these decorations would mean very little unless they were accompanied by hearts that were adorned with the love of the Lord, with those who were living for the Lord's coming and presence.
Each Advent is a gift of the Lord, to bring us back to what is most important in life. Let us ask the Lord for the grace to make this a holy year, a year of prayer, a year of increased love, a true year of the Lord! The Lord is coming! Let us embrace Him!
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