Most people are not very fond of the
first full week of January. It’s dark and cold, and the post-holiday letdown
has kicked in. Our once gorgeous Christmas trees now lie by the curb, dry and
brittle, completely naked except for a few straggling pieces of tinsel. Also,
the credit card bills for December are due in the mail any day now. And when we
open those credit card bills, we’re sure to exclaim, “Why did those stores in
the mall FORCE me to spend so much money?!”
Yes, this time of year can be quite
depressing. To add to the gloom, we also may be frustrated by the realization
that we’ve already failed to keep our New Year’s resolutions.
New Year’s resolutions are good—in
theory. As the Christmas season concludes, we likely have developed a fair
number of bad habits, such as eating and drinking too much, sleeping too
little, and whipping out the credit card as if our last name was Kardashian. So,
as we turn the page on a brand new calendar, it seems proper to resolve to cut
out some of the unhealthy habits we’ve developed.
We vow to stop drinking, to stop eating
bad food, and to lose ten pounds. We vow to get to sleep by 9:30 each evening,
and to join a health club and work out every day. But then reality sets in. The
health club idea falls through because our credit card gets rejected when we
try to buy a membership. The diet vow is broken when we realize the fridge is
stuffed with leftovers from multiple holiday parties, and of course it would be
a sin to throw out perfectly good lasagna, pumpkin pie, and those three glazed
hams. So, we take the edge off our post-holiday blues by having an occasional
snack or two or twelve.
May I suggest that instead of focusing
on physical things—food and exercise and sleep—we try a different approach to
New Year’s resolutions. We should try a spiritual approach and resolve to
develop some good habits of the soul.
I have two suggestions that may seem a
bit daunting at first, but compared to going to a health club every day and
giving up our favorite food and drink, my suggestions are a piece of cake (or
possibly a piece of pumpkin pie, assuming we haven’t eaten all the leftovers by
now).
The first suggestion is to spend a few
minutes each day reading the Bible. I know, I hear you. “It’s too confusing!”
“I don’t know where to start!” “I thought Catholics weren’t allowed to read the
Bible!”
Here’s a simple plan: read one chapter
of a Gospel each day. It takes less than five minutes. Pick one of the
Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, or Bob—and begin with chapter one. (Yeah, I know
there’s no Gospel of Bob. I just wanted to see if you were paying attention.)
The four Gospels have a total of 89
chapters. So, it takes about three months, at a rate of four or five minutes
per day, to go through all four. By April it will be time to start over again.
It’s a very easy habit to develop, and it’s very rewarding.
The second suggestion also is simple: go
to Confession each month. Oh please, stop whining. Confession is NOT scary. The
priests are very gentle and helpful. Confession is an awesome sacrament that
completely refreshes us from the inside out. And considering how we behaved at
the company Christmas party (yes, everyone was watching), it’s not like we have
nothing to confess. And best of all, after Confession, feel free to have a
piece of pumpkin pie.
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