Luceat!

Happy New Year! I have always found this time of the year very interesting. It is a time of resolutions, hope, laughter, and renewal. There seems to be something very good in the intentions of people’s hearts at the beginning of a new year. People start to look at themselves and realize their own imperfections and failings. They speak the language of self-knowledge and in a small sense begin to become “little mystics.”

Yet, there is some confusion about how to go about pursing these new resolutions and capitalizing on this new self-knowledge. On New Year’s Eve it seems to be the custom to go out and forget the past year in any way possible. The big parties, the excessive drinking, and the singing of “Let old acquaintance be forgot” seem to contradict everything that we are striving for in the New Year. We were talking discipline and a new way of life just minutes ago and now we are drowning ourselves in passion and reckless play.

This contradiction hit me in a new way this morning as I read on Yahoo’s front page the headline, “The Best Ways to Recover from a Hangover”. We miss many opportunities to change for the better because, somewhere deep down, we believe we’ll make it all right tomorrow. However, despite our tendency to think otherwise,one day there will be no tomorrow. The celebration of beginning ought to point us to the end: the end for which we were created (you know, the reason we make resolutions to improve) and the end of all things.

Let us contemplate the Blessed Virgin. She is a simple and humble young Jewish woman. The angel of the Lord appears to her. Her heart drops into her stomach as she stands in awe before the angelic being. She has been preparing her whole life for this moment, the moment of her vocation, the moment of the Incarnation. Theotokos! God-Bearer! This is what the early Church would begin to sing to her. And with them we start to sing, “O great God-Bearer, we entrust this new year to you!”

At Mass this morning I was struck by the prayer after communion which chants, Father, as we proclaim the Virgin Mary to be the Mother of Christ and the Mother of the Church, may our communion with her Son bring us to salvation. I thought, “This is why I love our Lady!” Because she brings me into greater communion with her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our salvation! I found myself being led by the Holy Spirit to consecrate this next year to Our Lady. I said a little prayer, handing my heart, mind, soul, body, and strength over to her so that she may transform me into a better son who is better prepared for communion with Jesus.

It is only by the miracle of grace that our resolutions will ever be actualized. We do not have the strength to become better men and women on our own accord. But we have a great Savior, who has offered all the grace necessary for this great task. We must make our New Year’s resolutions in all humility and on our knees. It takes a sincere heart seeking the face of God to find peace in striving to fulfill a New Year’s resolution. It takes a heart like Mary, the Mother of God.

It is tradition on this great Solemnity to sing Veni Creator Spiritus (Come Creator Spirit), the great hymn to the Holy Spirit. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to come into our hearts as he did to Mary, to give us the wisdom to see where we need to grow this year and the grace to live as saints. Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church…Pray for us!