
The object of a New Year
The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
I’m not unique when, at times, my heart feels like the pavement pictured above: stone-dry, cracked and devoid of life. And then a prayer or a person says or does something that infuses beauty, life...hope. Chesterton’s words dissolve the stony debris hardening our hearts to reveal the incarnated Christmas miracle given freely to each of us 8.2 billion souls on the planet: Everlasting life in Jesus, our savior. The object of a new year: a new soul and new eyes.
What does that mean, a new soul? Father Benedict Kiely explains, in his lovely nugget, “Make Dogma Great Again.” A new soul isn’t just about repentance and resolution to stop commiting the sins of the past, but “a sense of hope and trust in God and a willingness to cooperate with him– to listen to him. And yes, a new soul means a conversion. Let us in a profound way be more commited to our faith in public and private than we were in 2024. That sense of hope has solid grounds even if they are the size of a mustard seed…”
This year-2025-is exceptional. That’s true, I think, for many reasons but primarily two: First, this is the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed. And secondly, the world has ensconced on the Jubilee Year of Hope.
Why should the anniversary of words promulgated in 325 be material to us 1700 years later?
Make dogma great again
I’ve learned over the years that we converts have some things to teach those of you who never walked away from God. Our hard-earned knowledge is implicit in Father Benedict Kiely’s phrase, “make dogma great again.” Following my conversion from atheism to Catholic Christianity, I addressed a variety of groups about what it was like to live without faith. Almost always, about halfway through my talk I stomped the floor, hard, with my foot. The action served both to wake people up as well as to make my point: without faith, there is no ground, no floor, no limit…. Hence when I saw Fr. Kiely’s phrase, I recalled my absolute soul-bursting joy at the blessed, sacred dogma of our Christian and Catholic Chistian faith.
Yes!
The Lord of the Universe emptied himself of all divinity to take on our ruined humanity!
“If you wish, you can make me clean,” the leper prostrates himself before Jesus.
Jesus reaches out his hand, touches him and says,
“I do will it, be made clean.”
Bishop Robert Barron addressed the United States Congress last month. His subject? The Call of Justice. This hour-long-talk is riveting. It’s packed with a trove of material to ponder. For example: “The three trancendentals-properties -of being: Whatever is, to the measure that it is, is true, good and beautiful…thus appealing to the mind, will and heart of man…Culture is predicated on the three transcendentals of the true, the beautiful and the good…Your part of it is a passion for the good, the just…”
The camera pans the faces as they listen. “Truth, Justice, Beauty are other names for God…I think everyone in this room has been summoned….The measure of your life now is how do you respond to this call from uncondtional justice?”
The Jubilee year of hope
Although I’ve written before about this Jubilee Year of Hope, it feels that there aren’t enough words to describe my elation at the Holy Father’s opening of five Holy Doors. Pope Francis stated that he wanted the second Holy Door to be at a prison. And so, the Holy Door was opened at Rebibbia Complex. To underscore the wondrous meaning of such a thing, Pope Francis declared that he wanted everyone to “have the opportunity to fling open the doors to their hearts and to understand that hope never disappoints.”
We must remember precisely what a Jubilee means: the extraordinary graces offered to each soul if we prayerfully determine the object of a new year. A time of great joy, universal pardon, recovery of lost family members, freedom from slavery, lands returned to former owners…
The Old Testament readings in Leviticus make clear that each of us is a stranger and a sojourner. Therefore, claims of ownership of land and persons are groundless.
Someone cries from the left: ‘This land is mine!’ Somebody else cries from the right, ‘No way! It is mine!’ This is the sort of situation the Biblical text addresses. It does so by short-circuiting the discourse of rights and entitlement. ‘The land’, says the Lord, ‘shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants’ (Leviticus 25.23).
One of the many gifts of Christmas is contacting those we no longer see. Chris Garza at Saint Paul the Apostle Church Pismo Beach, and I had the chance to ‘talk’ online. Chris spoke of the specialness of this year. Because of Hope: the word that keeps glowing in my heart and mind for 2025! Chris’s comment that he was finishing French Catholic poet Charles Peguy’s epic poem, The Portal to the Mystery of Hope, intrigued me simply because of its title. Published the year of Peguy’s death in 1914, we sense Peguy’s timeless brilliance in his splendid words.
Hope is a little girl, nothing at all….
The Portal of the Mystery of Hope
“And yet it is this little girl who will endure worlds.
This little girl, nothing at all.
She alone, carrying the others, who will cross worlds past.
As the star guided the three kings from the deepest Orient.
Toward the cradle of my Son.
Like a trembling flame.
She alone will guide the Virtues and Worlds.
One flame will pierce the eternal shadows….