A SERMON FOR THE NEW YEAR
It’s all in the prep! That’s one of those axioms we learn from our
mothers early on in life. When we want
to do something, we have to prepare for what we’re going to need when we do
it. If we go outside to build a snowman,
we need to put our boots and gloves and winter coat on, take a carrot for the
snowman’s nose, lumps of coal for his eyes, and a scarf to put round his
neck. As we get older, we apply the same
principle to everything we do. When we
go on vacation, we know we need to apply for a passport, buy sunscreen, pack
our bags, book our flight, and so on. We
can’t just get in the car and drive to the airport. We have to prepare all the things we need.
It’s a principle that comes from
no less than God himself. Because before
he created man on the Sixth Day, he spent five days preparing a place for him
to live. He first created light, then a
planet on which we could live, a sun to give us heat and light, plants and
animals for us to eat, in short, everything man would need in order to live
naturally and have a suitable environment in which to save his soul. And then, later on, he would prepare the
world for the arrival of his Son, making sure that when the Messiah was born,
man would have no excuse for not believing in him. He himself announced to Adam and Eve that
there would be a Woman who would crush the head of Satan, he sent prophets to
tell us that the Saviour would be born in Bethlehem, to describe the events of
his life in every way. At his birth, he
prepared a star in the heavens to lead kings from afar to Bethlehem, he sent
his herald angels to proclaim the Messiah’s birth. God carefully prepared the world for his Son,
doing everything that was necessary to ensure we would have no excuse
whatsoever for ignoring or rejecting him.
The Church follows the example of
Almighty God, by giving us the four weeks of Advent to prepare our souls for
the joys of Christmas. Now the season is
finally upon us, it is our turn to have no excuse to ignore its true meaning,
or reject the lessons we learn from the Nativity of our Divine Saviour. Now is the time for one such lesson. A couple of days ago, on January the First, we
learned the true meaning of Christmas—that, yes, Christ the Saviour is born,
but that the emphasis is not so much on the “born” part, but on the word
“Saviour”. We learned how this tiny
Christ Child would be our Saviour, how he would save us all from Satan’s
power when we have gone astray. By
shedding his first few drops of blood—the Most Precious Blood that would
re-open the gates of heaven, the Blood of the New and Everlasting Covenant
between God and man.
Today we commemorate the Holy
Name of Jesus that he received at the same time of his Circumcision. We revere and venerate that Holy Name because
he shed those drops of Blood, and would do so again, this time to the very last
drop at his Passion and Death. He saved
us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray. And for this we bless the Holy Name of Jesus.
God never stops preparing us, and
his Bride, the Church, is always anxious to help God with his
preparations. Do we think perhaps that
it’s a coincidence that this first shedding of Christ’s Blood should take place
on the first day of January, the first day of a New Year? That the New and Everlasting Covenant
and the New Year should fall on the same day? The Feast of the Circumcision has to fall on
the First of January because according to Jewish law, a male child is
circumcised exactly eight days after his birth, and that was Friday, the Octave
Day of Christmas. That day, of course, was
also New Year’s Day, and the threshold between the old year and the new year,
the doorway between past and future, a new and everlasting future that will
never end. Sure, heaven and earth shall
pass away, but the Word of God shall not pass away. This little Christ Child, with the spilling
of his Precious Blood, shall never pass away, and neither shall we, because he has
brought to us the gift of eternity! The
promise of everlasting life, a promise or covenant that is truly a new and
everlasting covenant.
Have we prepared for the New
Year? Or have we done what most of the
world does? Did we simply walk across
that threshold and out into the new year on Thursday night with no preparation
whatever, simply partying, drinking ourselves silly, celebrating the movement
of a man-made ball a few feet downwards over Time Square in a faraway
state? Was that the extent of our
preparation for the New Year? Or have we
made plans for what we need, as we go out that doorway and into the unknown? Have we taken the time to figure out what we
need to take with us? Have we resolved
to do what is necessary to receive the benefits of those first few drops of the
Precious Blood spilled by our Saviour?
Have we made our New Year’s Resolutions?
Not the dieting and giving up smoking, not keeping our desk tidy or
making sure we don’t have more than one English muffin for breakfast. I mean real resolutions, ones that will bring
us merit in the eyes of God and the blessings and graces that he will bestow
upon us if we keep them. It’s not too
late. We’re only a couple of days into
the new year, and we still have that special opportunity for which we shall
surely be judged on that dreadful day of reckoning. Make the most of the opportunity, and prepare
for the coming year, for a future which does not end when our earthly life
passes away. It’s all in the prep.
