I’ve never been a fan of New Year’s celebrations. To me, it always used to seem like a silly, made-up holiday for people to go out partying and get drunk.
I think part of me was also bitter that the feast of Mary, Mother of God on January 1st often gets a bit overshadowed by New Year’s celebrations, sometimes even by well-meaning Catholics.
So, in my arrogant bitterness, I have tended to ignore the New Year holiday altogether and to judgmentally declare it for heathens. But that was before I discovered the deeply Catholic significance that the holiday can actually have.
Let’s Talk About Resolutions
Eating healthy. Exercising more. Making time for relaxation. Reconnecting with old friends or estranged family members.
These are the type of resolutions we tend to hear about. And, come January 1st each year, it seems like everyone and their mother is ready to hop on some bandwagon or other in hopes of a better coming year than their last.
Don’t get me wrong, all these types of things are definitely worthwhile and beneficial. And the start of a new year can certainly be a wake-up call moment to put things like this back into their rightful place in your life.
But if we stop here, where the rest of the world is living, we’re falling short as Catholics.
St. Faustina’s Take on the New Year
What really made me aware of the spiritual significance that the New Year can have was when I unexpectedly read of polish nun St. Faustina Kowalska’s view on it. In her diary Divine Mercy in My Soul, in an entry dated January 1st, 1937, she writes:
“Today, at midnight, I bid goodbye to the old year 1936, and welcomed the year 1937. It was with fear and trembling that, in this first hour of the year, I faced this new period of time. Merciful Jesus, with You I go boldly and courageously into conflicts and battles. In Your Name, I will accomplish everything and overcome everything…” (par. 859).
So, a bit of a different take on the holiday than the partying we typically see. She goes on to list a ton of saintly resolutions for her spiritual life, some of which pertain specifically to her life as a religious sister. But others are pretty relevant for us:
“To see the image of God in every sister; all love of neighbor must flow from this motive…”
“To do the will of God faithfully at every moment of my life and to live by this…”
“Not to look for God far and away, but within my own being to abide with Him alone…”
What This Means in Our Own Lives
Obviously, if you do enjoy a good New Year’s party, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. But we would probably do well to take a cue from St. Faustina and make some spiritual resolutions of our own.
It’s okay to start small—resolving to make more frequent use of the sacraments, to spend a specific amount of time in prayer every day, perhaps getting back in the practice of a particular devotion that you’ve inadvertently set aside.
And try to look for problem areas you’ve been meaning to face. Are there people in your past you need to work on forgiving? Areas of repeated sin you’ve been meaning to address? Any new things that you’ve just been too afraid to try?
God has brought you to the close of another year and the start of a new one. All may not be perfect in your life right now, but He continues to sustain you here on earth, and that is definitely something.
Beyond Celebrations and Even Resolutions
I certainly never realized it in my past disdain for the holiday, but it turns out that you can actually gain a plenary indulgence in connection to the New Year, in one of two ways.
On New Year’s Eve, you can recite or sing the Te Deum in thanksgiving to God for the blessings of the past year. Or, on New Year’s Day, you can recite or sing the Veni Creator Spiritus, asking for the Holy Spirit’s blessing and protection on your new year. The other conditions, as for all plenary indulgences, are that you go to confession and receive Communion within eight days, pray for the intention of the Holy Father, and be free from all attachment to sin.
Even though the rest of the world might be solely concerned with getting drunk and contemplating whom to kiss when the clock strikes midnight, the Church in Her wisdom has given us ways to make the time spiritually beneficial.
A year might be just another set of 365 days, a measurement of time, but it’s also an ingrained part of our lives as humans here on earth. So take this New Year as an opportunity to recognize the God who gives all time to you, and to make sure your life throughout the next year and here on out is as closely connected to Him as you can make it.
