Keep a good thing going throughout the new year

As we begin a new calendar year, I want to wish all of you a blessed, peace-filled and Happy New Year.
 
The usual and nice custom of making some New Year’s resolutions is upon us and it is an interesting time in our lives when we are deciding what we will be resolved to do differently in the coming year. I say it is interesting because what we usually resolve to do is something that is easy to do. It is something that we may have been doing already or we have been doing but will do just a bit differently in the future, and usually something that sooner than later we will tire of and stop doing altogether.
 
I would like to offer an alternative to our usual practices in coming up with our New Year’s resolutions. As Catholics, our new year has already begun with the first Sunday of Advent, so we are well into a new year of grace and favor from the Lord. If we made an effort to keep and observe Advent as it is intended to be observed, we did something that helped us prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus with the joy, strengthened faith and hope, and the fervent charity only His presence can give to us.
 
As Advent should have prepared us to find and welcome Jesus into our lives and into our midst by helping us to make straight His way, why don’t we resolve for the new calendar year to continue to do what we were doing during the Advent season? If we decided to go to Mass an additional day during the weeks of Advent, be resolved to continue to do this each week during the new calendar year.
 
If we decided to go to confession every two weeks during the Advent season, be resolved to continue to do this throughout the new calendar year. If we decided to come to Eucharistic Adoration each week during the Advent season, be resolved to continue to do this each week during the new calendar year. In other words, since the Church wants us to use our Advent practices throughout our new year of grace and favor from the Lord to follow Him, then why not just make this your calendar year resolution for 2017?
 
All the other New Year’s resolutions are good and useful but, in all honesty, how many do we really keep? And furthermore, how many of those resolutions have any good and positive impact on our lives of faith?
 
The transition from the Advent season to the Christmas season is a seamless one, so let’s keep a very good thing going throughout the new calendar year.
 
Again, to all of you and yours, a Blessed and Happy New Year!