2 January
Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, Doctors
1 John 2:22-28 | Psalm 97(98):1-4 | John 1:19-28
Live in Christ, then, my children,
so that if he appears, we may have full confidence,
and not turn from him in shame
at his coming. (1 John 2:28)
“I am a child of God.” It’s easy to make that claim, but hard to live up to it. It runs counter to the base human instinct of it’s-all-about-me. When my business partner WhatsApp’d me the Vulcan “live long and prosper” at the time when 2016 officially ended, I had to pause for a long while before realizing that I really didn’t want to do that, and shot back with “I’ll settle for live well and faithfully“.
✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞
As we begin a new year, there’s a great temptation to make resolutions that are more vague grand gestures than detailed practical deeds. “Eat less”, “exercise more”, “be more holy” – these are mostly doomed to failure.
On the other hand, “pray the rosary every day”, as Fr. Cornelius Ching urged us all to do during his Sunday homily, should actually be doable for everybody. I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t have a half-hour of quiet time each day to focus on prayer, and Mother Mary is just waiting for us to draw close, so that she can in turn lead us to Jesus.
I’ve mentioned before that my favorite time to pray the rosary is during my first journey on public transport each day. I’m not doing anything useful at that time, and after the first week of smartphone reminders, it became second-nature to make the sign of the cross in public, begin praying, then cross myself at the end and think about the rest of the day with a clear head. (I also learned that, contrary to my sometimes-inflated ego, nobody really cares about what I do in public as long as I’m quiet about it.)
So for 2017, I resolve to work towards “living in Christ”. Going for monthly confession seems like a good start; it doesn’t take much time to do, but requires me to be honest with myself about my failings – which can be surprisingly difficult.
Lord, accept these poor gifts that we offer, our successes and failures, our good times and bad. Give us in turn your love and grace to face each day as Your children, with willing hearts and minds to improve the lot of our fellow men. Amen.