Forget The New Year's Resolutions: Go For This Instead

The new calendar year at work continues. Some of us have readied our plan for this New Year to coincide with the beginning of the Liturgical Year. Some used the deadline of January 2023 to spur our planning to completion. 

(To those who have not yet put the finishing touches on this year's plan, time to get cracking!)

As we begin with the first tasks of this fresh new work week in this fresh new Year of Our Lord 2023, we saw last time how to see Our Blessed Mother as a model to emulate in all our thoughts, words, and deeds. We can, as well, beg the intercession of the patron saint or saints of our work life to ask God for the grace we will need to devote all our efforts on the job for His Greater Glory. If we ask, the graces will come.

We want to fire up and keep a burning flame of devotion in our souls as we work our way through this new year. It will help us preserve the purity of our intention to work for the greater glory of God. If we manage this even in the midst of our busiest days at work, we will have succeeded beyond our wildest imaginings.

Not that material success shouldn't be on our minds, of course. But first things first.

Here's something to give a boost to our spiritual life as we begin work in 2023 - some sage advice from one of the regular "friends' of this blog, Fr. Willie Doyle. I found it most helpful as a "wake-up" call. There's nothing here we Catholic men at work won't recognize. So let's dive in:

A want of will is the chief obstacle to our becoming saints. We are not holy because we do not really wish to become so. We would indeed gladly possess the virtues of the saints – their humility and patience, their love of suffering, their penance and zeal. But we are unwilling to embrace all that goes to make a saint and to enter on the narrow path which leads to sanctity. A strong will, a resolute will, is needed; a will which is not to be broken by difficulties or turned aside by trifling obstacles; a determination to be a saint and not to faint and falter because the way seems long and hard and narrow. A big heart, a courageous heart, is needed for sanctification, to fight our worst enemy – our own self-love.

Become a saint! It's what we're called to be. All of us. We should know this by now. If not, it's time to learn.

No matter what sort of work we do; no matter how successful we may or may not be in worldly terms, each of us can and should desire to become saints. Let's make 2023 our year!

As Father Willie points out, it won't be a smooth ride to sainthood. But what's the alternative? Mediocrity? Do you work hard each day to produce mediocre work? Lukewarmness? You know what Our Lord said about that. No, it's time to man up to sainthood.

Yes, I know: Easy to say. A few keystrokes don't take all that much effort. Admittedly, I'm no saint. But it doesn't mean I accept the status quo, right? Neither should you.

And with all that's being hurled at us by a world gone Covid-mad, could there be anything better to counter the madness than more of us with, as Father Willie puts it, "a big heart, a courageous heart," a heart big and courageous enough to desire sanctification in the only way possible: to fight "our worst enemy - our own self-love."

Nothing worth its salt is ever easy. Being a saint sits at the top of the list. What of it? If you're game, so am I.

Happy New Year!