NEW YEAR- 2011

NEW YEAR-2011

New Year's Day is the one holiday that is almost universal. It is the world's most observed holiday. People ring out the old year and ring in the new one with lot of expectations. Because we have a lot to achieve in our lives. You've made your New Year's resolutions, one of which is to be in worship at the break of this New year. And so you are here.

Every year we make resolutions but fail to fulfill them completely. But it should not be a cause for dismay. Our very attempt to make progress in life itself is progress. There is a saying: Well begun is half done. The starting impetus takes us a long way, till the first energy weakens.

Pastor Stephen Brown taught swimming and diving for a number of years. He tells about a young boy named Billy. Billy had watched so many professional divers and wanted so much to dive like them that he refused to take time to learn the basics. Time after time Brown tried to help Billy see that the most important thing about diving was to keep his head in the proper position. If his head entered the water properly, Brown explained, the rest of his body would enter the water properly--at least, more properly than it had been. Billy would dive into the pool, do a belly flop, and come up grinning, "Mr. Brown," he would shout, "were my feet together?"

"Billy, I don't care whether your feet were together or not," Brown shouted back. "Make sure your head is straight, then everything else will work out."

The next time Billy would stand on the edge of the pool and really concentrate. Then he would dive and, once again, make a mess of it. "Mr. Brown, were my hands together?"

"Billy," Brown would groan in frustration, "I'm going to get you a neck brace and weld it onto your head. For the hundredth time, if your head is right the rest of you will be right. If your head is wrong, the rest of you will be wrong."

And isn't that true in all of life? If our head is wrong, our marriage will probably suffer. If our head is wrong, our priorities will be fouled up. If our head is wrong, it may even affect our health in a negative way. God understands our distress and God seeks to make us new persons so that we can handle our distress more effectively.

So what we need is to start well and with right perspective. So to be happy we may not need any more resolutions, but a revolution. We need to turn completely around with a new set of attitudes, a new set of motivations, a new set of feelings about life and about others. That means we need to have our head in the right direction, right perspective.

If there is something in our life that distorts our perspective, we need to tear it down. Whatever we built up the past year, if it blocks my vision for a bright future, then, I have to tear it down. Anything in my relationship that does not make but breaks my relation ship with God has to be torn down.
In Thomas Moore's book Meditations, he tells of a pilgrim walking along a road. The pilgrim sees some men working on a stone building.

"You look like a monk," the pilgrim said.
"I am that," said the monk.
"Who is that working on the abbey?"
"My monks. I'm the abbot."
"It's good to see a monastery going up," said the pilgrim.
"They're tearing it down," said the abbot.
"Whatever for?" asked the pilgrim.
"So we can see the sun rise at dawn," said the abbot.
Sometimes our heart may not give us the consent to tear down what looks like fine edifice in our life. But to have the “Son rise” in our life we need to do it.

One main reason we fail to fulfill our promises is that we as humans find it difficult to step out of our comfort zone and make changes to our lives. The only way we can successfully make these changes is by putting our faith in God alone. Only then can we have the courage and discipline to follow through on our resolutions.

Let’s realize that with God we can turn every impossible into possible. The only thing lacking in us is the faith, to turn to God and share his power which Jesus shared with us. Let’s trust the words of St.Paul, If God is with us who can be against us ?


If you have ever been to a circus, you may have seen the huge bull elephants chained to a peg in the ground. Perhaps it has occurred to you that the elephant could easily pull the peg out of the ground and escape. However, he does not try. As a baby elephant he was tied to a huge stake that he could not pull out of the ground. Weeks of pulling and tugging only wore a trench around the stake, and finally he gave up. Now that he is full-grown, with great strength and the physical ability to pull the peg out of the ground, he remembers only the futility of past efforts and does not even attempt to escape. He is conditioned to failure. This is what happens with us. We try a lot of time on our own strength to win trying circumstances. But we failed. And that set of mind we don’t trust in our power, the power we have with God. With God’s strength let’s us pull ourselves free from that bind us down and get us free and walk free in this New year. Let’s not be discouraged at the failure to fulfill the promises of last year. Let’s set new resolutions and trust God to help us through.

The New Year reminds us that time is passing. It is up to each of us to maximize the potential of every moment.
Paul gives us specific directions for living each day. Paul in Philippians says, "Forgetting what lies behind, I strain forward to what is ahead."

Our Gospel today tells us that Mary treasured and pondered all these things in her heart. What events in our lives from the past year do we treasure and ponder about in our hearts? God has given us 84400 seconds a day. Multiplied by 365 days would be 30,806,000 seconds a year. How much of that have I spent in God’s glory ?
And what events do we look forward to in the coming year? How can God be part of the events in my new year…?