Letter of January 27, 2006

Let 2006 Be ‘Year Of Our Lord’
Most Reverend Carl F. Mengeling, Bishop of Lansing

Our passing from the old year to the new year, from 2005 to 2006 was inevitable and out of our control. But we do control ‘how’ we welcome a New Year. Some are resigned to it with pessimism and dismay. Wondering ‘what will I do with all this time on my hands?’

Others endure the New Year with dreary and monotonous indifference. Most happily welcome the New Year with HOPE and OPTIMISM! That’s because they remember the reasons for HOPE.

Back in 1942 the lyrics of a hit song is about ‘remembering’. It was sung in the Academy Award Winner of 1942 ‘Casablanca’. Recall Elsa (Ingrid Bergman) asks: "Sing it again, Sam. Sing ‘As Time Goes By’. Sam begins: "You must remember this - ".

For Catholics and believers in Christ, a New Year is a gift of 365 days of precious time. It’s a New Year to become, with our consent, a ‘Year of Our Lord’. It’s a fresh and new start; a year-long grace to make our time holy and happy.

Almost universally, the symbol of the New Year is a tiny, newly born BABY, just starting it’s journey of life with us in time.

For Catholics and other believers, the BABY of New Year is right ‘on target’. Indeed, we begin the New Year remembering the baby - the Christ-child who transforms the time of our years into ‘Years of Our Lord’.

As a loving mother, the Church carefully prepares us and leads us into the New Year. Mother Church takes us by the hand and guides us down a kind of memory lane to get us ready for 2006. We remember the events of the first Year of Our Lord. These events we remember capture us and happen in us.

We remember, celebrate and enter into all that happened in that first ‘Year of Our Lord’. That first ‘Year of Our Lord’ is the way for every year since to be a ‘Year of Our Lord’.

Sort of jammed into a few weeks at the end of 2005 and the start of 2006, the Church celebrates the sacred beginnings set in motion by the Holy Child. This never ceases, but continues in every generation until Christ returns in glory.

We remember first the birth of Jesus on Christmas and welcome him into our minds, hearts and lives more than last year. We will identify with him in his entire life this coming year.

On January 1, the Mother of Jesus took us, his sisters and brothers into her care for the New Year of grace. On January 8, we recalled the Three Wisemen searching and finding the Child whom they adore. Our New Year will be adoring the Lord our God with our whole mind, our whole heart and all our strength.

These and all in between set us in the right frame of mind and in the right direction for 2006. They have been doing so by the grace of the Holy Spirit for two millennia. Now it’s our turn.

A spiritual giant of the 20th century tells of the power of HOPE in his life. Vietnamese Archbishop Van Thuan, was a prisoner in Communist’s prisons for 13 years, 9 of them in solitary confinement. In 1991 he was expelled from Vietnam.

In his book ‘Testimony of Hope’ he describes his ordeal as "the agonizing pain of isolation and abandonment". John Paul II made him Cardinal on February 21, 2001.

As we enter 2006, his words about the ordinary and simple realities are a gift:

"By your example, Lord Jesus, you have taught me to live close to reality and to value ordinary tasks: gathering leftover loaves and fish, fishing, cooking, buying oil, visiting the abandoned and sick, sharing food and clothes, loving, pardoning those who do me wrong...many completely ordinary responsibilities!

Each of us carries out ordinary tasks every day, but the range of their influence is immense. Ordinary tasks can bring life and happiness to a person, provoke a family’s collapse, or even prepare a new society for the future.

Such tasks bear witness to our love and, if done for the Lord, serve as a key that opens the doors of paradise. Who proclaimed this? Jesus himself when he said: "whoever is faithful in the small things will also be faithful in the great."

Ordinary things await us at every moment of life. If we all accomplished our humble tasks with the heart of Jesus, his revolution of love would be complete and success would be in our hands!

My surprise and joy will be great when I hear Jesus say to me, "Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful in the little things... Enter into the joy of your Lord."