November 28, 2010
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Happy New Year!
What? Aren’t I about a month too early?
Not according to the Liturgical Calendar! Yes, today we enter into the Liturgical New Year and the First Sunday of Advent! I love being part of a liturgical church, where the very days and seasons invite us to live and breathe the history of Salvation. Advent reminds us of the long years of awaiting the Messiah, that dark period of human history where all we literally had was a hope and a prayer. This is a time of preparation, thought and prayer, making room in our hearts to welcome Christ anew on Christmas so that when He comes He isn’t turned away because our hearts were too crowded to accommodate Him!
Can you even imagine what it must have been like for Mary, eight months pregnant (you mothers out there can identify!) and suddenly you have to travel on donkey-back to another town? Not to mention you are carrying within you the only home mankind has ever had and will ever have!
It is popular in our culture on the secular New Year (the very day when the Church worldwide honors the Mother of God with a great solemnity!) to make resolutions.
Why not take this Advent to make just one resolution, one thing you’d like to work on during the year? Something you start with in preparation for Christ’s coming anew into the manger of your heart, something to work on while you hold your newfound Joy Incarnate through to the Feast of the Epiphany, through a brief period of Ordinary time until Lent begins and your Lord is all grown up and headed through the desert for Jerusalem, something to have purified in that journey with Him to the Cross, something to offer Him at Easter time? Something to keep asking for His help on in the ordinary time that follows until the Feast of Christ the King next year when you come before Him and lay your progress at His feet? Ponder your work together with the Carpenter’s Son for a week before Advent begins again and you take up another part of yourself to work on alongside Christ; let the liturgical year, its seasons and feasts draw you deeply into the Gospel!
What are some of your resolutions for the new liturgical year? What about yourself would you like to bring to Christ’s workbench of the heart?
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Comments (12)
My resolution is a simple one: The Act of Contrition
My God, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart.
In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good,
I have sinned against you whom I should love above all things.
I firmly intend, with your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid whatever leads me to sin.
Our Saviour Jesus Christ, suffered and died for us.
In his name, my God, have mercy.
I think the Lord will need more than a workbench for me. Maybe some smelting equipment to burn away the dross.
Happy New Year, Scribe
My resolution…is to try to be ‘not of this world’ while not completely jaded, simultaneously. it’s incredibly hard for me to manage that. additionally, i’m continually working on how to love. what can i say, i’m not exactly good at it, but He’s been working on me for a good long while and I’m getting there…
hopefully this resolution would resonate acros the spectrum of Christians liturgical and nonliturgical
Great post!
My resolution is to try to decrease my attachment to material goods.
I’ve been thinking on this for a while, and I need to do more. I know my capabilities greatly outweigh my accomplishments.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year & Happy Advent!
My resolution is to grow in more spiritual & prayerful discipline.
I was so excited to see the Advent candles and it’s so exciting to wear purple and sing Christmas hymns!
love the background, brother!
as for resolutions, i’m kicking it up a notch in my missionary job. i’m trying to get a lot more done earlier on in the week. i’m also trying to follow the Spirit more specifically with my ministry. i know i should be doing that already, but just paying more attention to the different spiritual movements and acting accordingly ought to make my ministry so much more honoring and fruitful!
Happy new year – we are going to start islamic year in few days too… our sect doesn’t allow us to congratulate it because something happened on 10th of the first month – but I do give congratulations – old bad habit to piss my parents out… pardon for my spoiled language…
anyways – I wish all of you a very very very happy new year…
Hey Ancient Scribe, I don’t suppose you know the history behind why the Liturgical calendar is set up the way it is, do you? I’ve been wondering for a while.
Oh dear, I’ll have to give that some thought! Happy New Year!
Most inspiring, even if I am a couple months too late.