Catholic New Year’s resolutions are more surprising

CatholicAnchor.org
What are your New Year’s resolutions? Don’t you hate that question? It’s like the “Are you ready for Christmas?” query people throw at you in mid-December. Are you kidding? Who’s ready for Christmas on Dec. 15?

New Year’s resolutions have declined in popularity.

And yet, there’s something about those post-Christmas days, after you’ve thrown huge quantities of wrapping paper into the garbage because you don’t know if you can recycle all that scotch tape, when you suddenly want to reform your life.

I will be a better person in 2015! I will lead a simpler, slimmer, more spiritual life. I will not make impulse buys. I will exercise feverishly. Suddenly, it’s all about me and my self-improvement projects. How dreary and self-defeating they often are.

Personally, I like the Catholic idea that the New Year starts with the new liturgical year, Advent, a time of waiting. And instead of making all kinds of soon-to-be-forgotten resolutions, we commit ourselves to the exercise of waiting — conscious, prayerful waiting.

If you didn’t feel “new” on the first Sunday of Advent, take heart. After all, Epiphany isn’t celebrated until January 6, and if there’s one word that promises new beginnings, it’s got to be a holiday called “epiphany.”

I had a little epiphany of my own this Advent season. It’s a little embarrassing that it’s taking me over 60 years to get a handle on this spirituality thing, but I’m a slow learner. Chalk it up to being the oldest child in my family, perhaps, but I’m a control freak. I want to be in charge of me. Sure, I want to “listen” to God, but I want to do a lot of talking, too, and God probably finds me very bossy.

Of course, I’ve always known that the key word to describe Advent is “waiting.” The Israelites waited a long time for a savior; we all know that ancient story. Little kids wait for Christmas all year long. Waiting is an integral part of the human condition. But if I think I can control the wait, I may just miss what I’m waiting for.

We all know that a key component of waiting is that surprises come at the end. For example, during Advent I met my first grandchild, Charlotte. We waited for Charlotte for a long time, not just nine months, but also during the years when we were raising our own children and anticipating that someday our line would probably continue to another generation. But how and who? We had no idea. God brings surprises.

And there’s the far more remarkable story of Christ himself. No self-respecting Israelite, save perhaps a prophet on a good day, would ever have told you the king you awaited to save your nation would be born in a stable and die on a cross. Who thought we were waiting for that?

So, I set out in Advent waiting, but actually, until my little epiphany, I wasn’t so much waiting as making my own spiritual plans. This is what I would “do” for Advent. Surprises? They can be frightening.

But then, it began to dawn on me: I’m supposed to be attentive, “praying always” as Saint Paul so aggressively described the attitude we should bring to our daily lives. I must be open to surprise. I’m supposed to live each present moment in anticipation of surprise, the only place I will ever find God.

It’s such a liberating thought. Forget those promises and resolves. Just one is necessary: Show up and listen. The rest is up to the One for whom we wait.

The writer, formerly from Anchorage, now lives in Omaha, Neb.