I don’t believe in making New Year’s resolutions, so please don’t ask me about them. I believe that we are all called to personal conversion, every day, all year through. That is probably why St. Benedict writes in his Rule that “the life of a monk ought to be a continuous Lent”. The trap of the New Year’s resolution is that once it’s broken, we are likely to think we are off the hook. Why bother, now that it’s busted? The fact of the matter is that we are meant to fail in such endeavors. That’s our nature as human beings. We’re not perfect and we’ll never be perfect. But we need to keep getting up after we’ve fallen down and not give up. The best way, I think, is to get up every day and start again, over and over, as though each day is the beginning of a new year. No matter who we are, no matter how far along the spiritual path we may have come, we must be content to be mere beginners.
Personal conversion is not a kind of do-it-yourself kit, nor is the spiritual journey a linear path from point A to point B. It’s a road with ups and downs, twists and turns, detours and meanderings. Sometimes, it’s not even a road—and maps are useless. The work of personal conversion is not so much our work, as it is God’s work—God’s work in us through grace. And it is somewhere along the way on the paths we tread that God’s grace is there to meet us in our ups and downs, twists and turns, detours and meanderings. This can’t happen, though, if we sit down and decide not to travel any further. Even if we’ve fallen down a deep ravine, we need not despair, as God’s grace will find us there. We need only to be willing to get back up and continue on the journey.
Blessed journeying to you and a grace-filled New Year!
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