New
Year’s, as Burns’ comical comment reminds us, is, by definition, something new,
a gift freely given us that offers an opportunity for hope. Someone said to me recently that he was
looking forward to 2019 because, at least, it won’t be an election year. The
only problem with that, I reminded him, is that long before the end of the year
the next election campaign will have already begun!
Elections aside, in whatever way we
approach the beginning of a new year, hope has to be a part of it. To be sure,
for all our holiday cheer, many of us may be marking the end of another very
difficult and challenging year by looking ahead to 2019 with more than a little
anxiety. It’s not for nothing, after all, that we pray every day at Mass that we may be safe from all distress, as we
await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
But, if our distress and anxiety are
real enough, so too must be our hope, the hope we all share as Church, the hope
we have been proclaiming this Christmas season, and on which we must all rely
in all things and at all times, all the year round: the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Our hope is founded and focused on Jesus
Christ, the one whose birth 2000+ years ago is the very basis for the calendar
we mark today. When the fullness of time
had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman – Mary the Mother of God and
the Mother of the Church. He was born
under the law – that is, he was a member of the Jewish People, circumcised
on the 8th day of his earthly life, in fulfillment of God’s covenant
with his Chosen People.
God’s showing up in the world in Jesus –
born to a particular mother, of a particular people, in a particular place, at
a particular time in human history – has realigned all of time and given all of
history a new and more hope-filled meaning, giving us a hope for the future we
would never otherwise have had. “The face of God,” as Pope Francis reminded us
In his Urbi et Orbi Christmas
Message, “Did not appear in an angel, but in one man, born in a specific time
and place. By his incarnation, the Son of God tells us that salvation comes
through love, acceptance, respect for this poor humanity of ours, which we all
share in a great variety of races, languages, and cultures.”
Time
has always been very precious – precisely, I suppose, because we have only such
a limited supply of it. By becoming part of our time, however, God has
turned our limited time on earth into a time of unlimited
opportunity. So today he invites us to receive this new year – this year of our
Lord 2019 – with gratitude as his gift and to enter it not in fear or anxiety,
but with the hope that counts as one of God’s greatest Christmas gifts to us.
As
you probably know by now, 2019 will be a special year for the Paulist Fathers,
for we are celebrating the Bicentennial of the birth of our founder, Servant of
God Isaac Hecker, who was born 200 years ago on December 18, 1819. In a famous
New Year’s Day sermon, fittingly titled “How to Be Happy,” Hecker, said:
It is the common custom in
meeting of friends at this season, to greet each other with a Happy New Year!
This is a praiseworthy and pleasant custom, and in accordance with it, I greet
you all, my dear brethren, with a Happy New Year! Happy New Year to all our friends
and the inhabitants of this city, and to all our countrymen, whether dwelling
north or south, east or west, in this our native land. Happy New year to all
men of whatever race or clime; for God is our common Creator, and in Christ we
are all sons of God, and therefore brethren.
And
so, I too wish you all today, a Happy New Year!
Homily for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, New Year's Day, January 1, 2019
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