The beginning of a new year always promises the hope of fresh beginnings. We make resolutions to live better and to make better choices—to start anew. Perhaps that is why, when I recently attended the Divine Liturgy at Saint George Melkite Greek Catholic Church in Birmingham, these words from the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom struck me:
“Having prayed for a perfect, holy, peaceful, and sinless day, let us commit ourselves and one another, and our whole life to Christ our God.”
I was struck by the realization that if we really are praying for a “perfect, holy, peaceful, and sinless day,” then we have to “commit ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God.” Yet, I know this is what I continually fail to do—really commit myself and my “whole life” to Christ.
I do commit part of my life to Christ, but this falls short of what God expects and deserves. Recently Monsignor Muller preached in our parish on the need for stewardship and impressed this point upon me—we have to give ourselves entirely to Christ, and what prevents us is an illusion that somehow we can save ourselves and that we really don’t need Christ.
However, this is an illusion of the worst kind—for without Christ we are all as good as dead.
So at the top of my list of goals for this New Year is the resolution to surrender everything to Christ, to be a steward of what God has given me (my life) and continues to give to me (my children). I also want to commit others to Christ through my prayer—to lift them up in prayer, so that they too will accept the gifts that God gives to them.
In the most popular movie over the Christmas holiday, “Marley and Me,” the character played by Jennifer Anniston utters the line, “Let’s stop trying not to have a baby.” I believe firmly that art does in fact imitate life. Such a line doesn’t come out of a vacuum, but reflects a deep seated feeling in our culture that we have not been as welcoming of God’s gifts as we should be. To further stress the point, the trailer for an upcoming movie entitled “The Unborn” is a horror flick. Our culture is literally haunted by the unborn and the gifts of God that we have rejected.
This is a special time of the year to recall the gift of life—our own (and hence the need to once again eat well and exercise) and all of God’s creation—from the moment of conception to natural death. Do we want a holy, peaceful, and sinless day? Then we must commit ourselves entirely to Christ our God.
Bishop Baker has invited everyone to join him in the Cathedral this Saturday at 9:00 a.m. for a Mass dedicated to the Respect of Life. An ecumenical March for Life at Bryant Park will follow at 10:45 a.m. I hope you will join us in these concrete ways of committing ourselves entirely to Christ our God.
Now is the time.
Filed under: Catholic
