By Fr Antony Christy, SDB –
Let us begin the new year 2019 with grateful hearts. Here are 3 messages we can start the year with…
1. Obey the Mother; Follow the Son:
We start the year with Mary the Mother of God. She is intent always on leading us to her son…Do whatever he tells you (Jn 2:5) : that is her refrain all the while. When the Church Fathers at Ephesus, in 432, thought of resolving the confusion whether Jesus was God or Man, they thought of defining a dogma on Mary… what a way to understand the nature of Jesus through the vocation of Mary! She was called to be Mother of God and that is what she is… Mother of God, Mother of us all, Mother of the Church. Obey the Mother, and you will automatically be following the Son. Beginning the year with the mother is a guarantee of walking it through with the Son!
2. Open your hearts; Begin with God:
Happy New Year we wish each other: just look around and tell me, what is new? Same old house, same old people, same old things and same old problems… aren’t they? There was this kid whom the Parish priest met a week after Christmas and found him very sad about Christmas… and he asked the kid why? Did your parents not give you gifts? No they gave, he said. Did they not buy you new clothes? Hmm..that is the problem, he said. They bought… but the same colour as last year! We cannot help smiling at it and say to ourselves: how often we think as that kid did. We are so adamant not to see things in a brighter light. Every time we have something that would stop us from being happy. We are so judgmental with everything, specially with people, that we cannot see anything new. As Mother Teresa would say, we are busy judging and so we do not have the time to love. Look at every person every time with a new open heart and you will see life will be much more blessed.
3. Own up; Give Peace a Chance:
Today is also 52nd World Peace Day celebrated by the Church. Pope Francis declares to us this day, “Good Politics is at the service of Peace”! It is easier to read this message with the politicians and leaders in our minds; if we are that, we better take this message seriously. But for the majority of us, it might sound not connected to, if we are not diligent enough to see through the message! Calling us to be at peace with ourselves, with others and with the entire universe, Pope Francis means by ‘politics’, a much greater reality than merely party politics or even governance. It is the call and commission we have to live as responsible citizens of the world, loving fellow persons to the entire humanity and a grateful part of God’s amazing creation! That is the key to peace. We cannot do anymore with threats and pressures and sanctions at various levels; it has to become a conviction and a challenge to each and every one of us, to take up the cause of peace and give peace a chance, wherever we are and in whatever way possible!
Happy New Year 2019! May God be with us, accompany us and grant us peace!
Fr Antony Christy is a Salesian Priest from 2005, who has a Masters in Philosophy (specialisation in Religion) and a Masters in Theology (Specialisation in Catechetics). He is currently pursuing his doctoral research in Theology at Salesian Pontifical University, Rome. Walking with the Young towards a World of Peace and Dialogue is the passion that fires him.