A Sunday Thought to Start the Week Off Right
This New Year of Our Lord 2018 has finally gained some traction. Most of us have returned to our usual daily labors, the extraordinary celebrations of our Christmas holiday now behind us. Weren't they wonderful? But now we're back to our ordinary lives. The daily grind firmly, steadily takes hold.
And so comes this first Sunday of 2018. We receive, right on time - and for many of us just in time - our first respite from our ordinary daily toil. I don't know about you, but I find these first days back to work after my Christmas break more laborious than usual. Thank You Lord, for Your Sabbath, for insisting that on the seventh day, we should rest, as did You after Your work of creating the universe. Following Your example, help me to keep Sunday as I should throughout 2018.
This past week, we shared some great advice from venerable Bishop Fulton J. Sheen to help us start off the New Year on the right foot. Perhaps we can take a slice of that advice and consider it on this first Sunday of the New Year in one of those calm, peaceful moments we might find:
"...you were made for God. Nothing short of the infinite satisfies you, and to ask you to be satisfied with less would be to destroy your nature. As great vessels, when launched, move uneasily on the shallow waters between the narrow banks of the river, so you are restless within the confines of space and time and at peace only on the sea of infinity."
We turn this over and over in our minds and hearts on this first Sunday of 2018; let it take root and grow in our souls. We recall that all that we strive for in this life, no matter how seemingly important, always somehow falls short. After a brief interlude of satisfaction, we seek more. But more only leads to more - and so forth. Is that any way to live?
Advent turned our gaze towards Bethlehem. We invited the Christ Child into our hearts on Christmas Day. Let's now strive to keep Him there throughout the New Year. In the coming weeks, we will watch Him grow: from an infant lying in a manger, to that young man Mary and Joseph found speaking with his elders in the Temple; from the obscurity of His hidden life in Nazareth to His manifestation in Jerusalem as the Messiah. Along the way, He taught us how to find and grow closer to Our Father in Heaven, how to live with and love one another. As we recall all this, we beg the graces we need to grow - in holiness - alongside Him.
Recalling the words of Bishop Sheen, may our restlessness lead us from "the confines of space and time," to a deeper understanding of the fact that we shall be "at peace only on the sea of infinity."
By His grace, may it be so in this Year of Our Lord 2018.
And so comes this first Sunday of 2018. We receive, right on time - and for many of us just in time - our first respite from our ordinary daily toil. I don't know about you, but I find these first days back to work after my Christmas break more laborious than usual. Thank You Lord, for Your Sabbath, for insisting that on the seventh day, we should rest, as did You after Your work of creating the universe. Following Your example, help me to keep Sunday as I should throughout 2018.
This past week, we shared some great advice from venerable Bishop Fulton J. Sheen to help us start off the New Year on the right foot. Perhaps we can take a slice of that advice and consider it on this first Sunday of the New Year in one of those calm, peaceful moments we might find:
"...you were made for God. Nothing short of the infinite satisfies you, and to ask you to be satisfied with less would be to destroy your nature. As great vessels, when launched, move uneasily on the shallow waters between the narrow banks of the river, so you are restless within the confines of space and time and at peace only on the sea of infinity."
We turn this over and over in our minds and hearts on this first Sunday of 2018; let it take root and grow in our souls. We recall that all that we strive for in this life, no matter how seemingly important, always somehow falls short. After a brief interlude of satisfaction, we seek more. But more only leads to more - and so forth. Is that any way to live?
Advent turned our gaze towards Bethlehem. We invited the Christ Child into our hearts on Christmas Day. Let's now strive to keep Him there throughout the New Year. In the coming weeks, we will watch Him grow: from an infant lying in a manger, to that young man Mary and Joseph found speaking with his elders in the Temple; from the obscurity of His hidden life in Nazareth to His manifestation in Jerusalem as the Messiah. Along the way, He taught us how to find and grow closer to Our Father in Heaven, how to live with and love one another. As we recall all this, we beg the graces we need to grow - in holiness - alongside Him.
Recalling the words of Bishop Sheen, may our restlessness lead us from "the confines of space and time," to a deeper understanding of the fact that we shall be "at peace only on the sea of infinity."
By His grace, may it be so in this Year of Our Lord 2018.
Happy New Year!
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