New Beginning

New Year's Day. Solemnity of Mary Mother of God (Tuesday, 1 January 2019)

Numbers 6:22-27. Psalm 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8. Galatians 4:4-7. Luke 2:16-21. (Please click the following link for the above readings http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/010119.cfm.)

“As for Mary, she treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

A new beginning. Another new beginning. We need to live the new year 2019 as another new beginning. We need to hit the re-start button. We need to begin again.

But perhaps there are many cunning foxes jumping on our shoulders and whispering: “This is just another year. There is nothing new under the sun.” The newspapers and media too keep bombarding the negative things. “The world is the same. The world is not okay, the world is not good. God is not concerned about the world.”

That’s a lie. Those are lies. God is concerned about you and me, more than we ourselves are concerned about us. God is radically involved in the world. He says, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). We need to live every moment, every day, every year as new.

How to live every moment as if it's new? In today's gospel, in the person of Mother Mary we have an indication. Like Mary, we are called to have a contemplative heart in the busy-ness of our lives. Even when it's a “busy-mess!” Luke doesn't miss to record this beautiful attitude of Mary, which is not a marginal one but essential: “Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

For this we need to live one moment at a time. We could fill it with as much love and awareness as possible. That's the total goal of our lives. Our task is to be present here and now to this moment in a most complete manner; to put our heart and soul in whatever we are doing right now right here. The smallest of events can teach us everything, if we learn “Who” is doing them with us, through us and for us. Have no doubt: That is the total goal. God reveals Himself fully here and now.

It's enough to live this one moment as fully as possible. One moment at a time. One day at a time. By living this moment fully, by putting as much of positive energy into this present moment, I can achieve many things: one is conversion or transformation.

Conversion is not a moral achievement accomplished by good behaviour or New Year's resolutions. It is not achieved, it happens to us. It happens to those people who need it intensely. It happens to those people who realise that only holding on to one side of life's experiences is of no use. It happens to them who try holding both the sides of their life: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the virtuous and the sinful, the useful and the useless.

Transformation is gifted to us when we stop dividing life, and are able to embrace everything, to welcome everything and everyone and every moment as they are, to include all our dreams and nightmares into our loving consciousness. (If you wish you could try the life-changing Mary Mrozowski's "The Welcoming Prayer," also popularized by Fr Thomas Keating.)

Remember, you can be doing very good things but, if you are doing them with negative energy, the results will not be life-giving for yourself, for others, or for the world. Thought and energy have consequences. The opposite is also true: You can do faulty things but, if you're doing them with positive life-energy, they will still bear fruit for the world. (Wow! That deserves a big WOW!) As Yahweh said of imperfect David, “I see the heart instead of appearances” (1 Samuel 16:7).

Let us put more heart into this moment—into this new beginning—into this new year!

Wish you a HEARTY New Year 2019!