Every year since Social Media started to be a dominant factor in everyone’s life, when certain dates approach we see the same messages about leaving the old in the past with the 12 bell rings, talking about the “new year, new me”, thinking about the New Years’ Resolutions, etc etc.
There is nothing wrong with all the above, but after a while, and if you follow a lot of accounts -like me, for example- it becomes a bit overwhelming.
No, I won’t be a new person on the 1st of January at 12:00am vs 31st of December at 11:59pm. I am a new person every day, every minute, but very specially I am a new person every time I approach the Sacrament of Confession. This is a true and beautiful grace God has given us.
Even if you go to confession in the middle of June, when you come out of that Confessional, you are made new by the Grace of God: your sins are forgiven and God grants you a new opportunity to be a better you. But a better you is not one with a better sleeping routine, or a better laundry system, or a thinner body, or with better hair, or with miraculously better behaved kids or a very harmoniously family life. NO. A better YOU, because God has given your SOUL a cleanse and a new opportunity to search for Sainthood over and over again.
Yes, you and me and all of us are called to be Saints. Don’t think Sainthood is only for the very well known Saints that we can’t find photos of and only know by illustrations from ancient times. Sainthood is for all!
“don’t think sainthood is only for the very well known saints that we can’t find photos of and only know by illustrations from ancient times. sainthood is for all”.
We have St. Gianna Beretta Molla, a contemporary Saint who was a working Mother, Paediatrician and a Wife who only last year we commemorated her 60 years of passing away into the arms of Our Lord and after a priceless sacrifice!.
We have Blessed Carlo Acutis, an almost Saint who can be the son of any of us, who knew about computers more than you and me together. We have St. Therese of Lisieux who, although her pictures are in black and white, she can be seen in them as a human being with eyes of sorrow, love and sacrifice.
Oh I can mention so many Saints! But also, so many unknown saints, who live in the silence of their homes, saints who you will never hear from but are doing God’s work in the corner of the world that God has put them in.
So yes, YOU and I are called to be Saints. And the only way to achieve that wonderful goal is getting into the Confessionals as soon as we are aware of a sin that will drag us further from God.
God makes every day new, so every day is a new opportunity. If you already “fail” in your New Years’ Resolutions, today is a new day, and tomorrow too, and every day is a new chance granted by Our Lord to take you to heaven. His Graces are Infinite.
“This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice in it and be glad” Psalm 118, 24.
“The whole power of the sacrament of Penance consists in restoring us to God’s grace and joining us with him in an intimate friendship. Reconciliation with God is thus the purpose and effect of this sacrament. (…) This sacrament reconciles us with the Church.
“god makes every day new, so every day is a new opportunity.”
Sin damages or even breaks fraternal communion. The sacrament of Penance repairs or restores it. In this sense it does not simply heal the one restored to ecclesial communion, but has also a revitalisng effect on the life of the Church which suffered from the sin of one of her members. Re-established or strengthened in the communion of saints, the sinner is made stronger by the exchange of spiritual goods among all the living members of the Body of Christ, whether still on pilgrimage or already in the heavenly homeland.” (1468 & 1469 Catechism of the Catholic Church about The Effects of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation).
And with this reminder I want to wish you a Happy New Year to you and your family!
God bless you, Liza, a Maronite Mum