A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and there they found Mary and Joseph and also the baby lying in the manger. Once the shepherds saw, they understood what had been told them concerning this child. All who heard of it were astonished at the report given to them by the shepherds. Mary treasured all these things and reflected on them in her heart.
The shepherds returned to their fields glorifying and praising god for all that they had heard and everything that they had seen in accord with what had been told to them. When the eighth day arrived for the child's circumcision, that the angel had given him before he was conceived. And this is the gospel of the lord. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen. And so we are into the new year, 1982. And I wish to extend to each one of you in the name of your pastor and all of our names, a very happy New Year. That 1982, be happy. Well, whenever I use that word, I don't know what I mean, you know.
I have no idea. What do we mean when we say happy New Year? The only thing I can think of is that you live this year in the peace of Jesus Christ, And the peace of Jesus Christ is no mean thing. It is no little thing. It is no simple thing.
It is nothing that gives happiness in the sense that the world gives happiness. That I do know. So when I wish you peace, what I'm wishing you is that the coming year will see you in close association with your lord and savior, Jesus Christ. As we look back on a year, the Christmas holidays, including New Year, are melancholy times for many people. You almost are inclined to say for most adults.
Why? Well, I think Percy Bysshe Shelley put it pretty well when he said, We look before and after and pine for what is not. Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught. Our sweetest songs tell of saddest thought. Incidentally, Percy Bysshe Shelley died in a boating accident, quotation marks, in 1822 at the age of 30.
That's one view. We look before and after and pine for what is not. It's a very famous line. That's not the Christian attitude at all. When I wish you a happy new year, when I wish you to live in the peace of Jesus Christ, I'm not wishing you to pine away by looking before and after, not in the least.
On the contrary, I am echoing the words of John the twenty third, the last new year that he had on this earth before he died in 1963. And here's the message he gave, part of it. He says, consult I don't this of course was not given in English, this is a translation. Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations.
Think about your unfulfilled potentials. Concern yourself not with what you have tried to do and failed to do, but with what it is still possible for you to do. There were that was his in his last New Year's message before he died in 1963. He was a man who spoke with a great deal of worldly wisdom, And that's what this is. You don't have to be a Christian to say this makes sense.
It doesn't make sense to look before and after and pine for what is not. That's absurd. Maybe beautiful poetry. I guess it is. I'll take anybody's word for poetry.
But anyway, he died in an a boat accident quotation marks at the age of 30 in 1822. That's how he wound up. Now the the message that our holy father gave John the twenty third is what we should think of. But as Christians, he doesn't mention Christ. He doesn't mention God.
He just gives you a few wholesome thoughts which could have come from Cicero or from Horace or from Plato or from any sensible person who has a little bit of worldly knowledge or worldly wisdom or worldly experience. But we are more than that. We are Christians. We have celebrated the birthday of our lord and savior Jesus Christ. The name Jesus means the lord saves.
Each one of us has been baptized with the sign of the cross, the sign of Jesus, the lord saves. Which brings me to Saint Paul. What did Saint Paul talk to the Philippians? I can do all things. That's what Paul said.
I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me. I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me. That's the keyword. That's the way we wanna look at the past. It isn't to look at the past and to pine for what is not.
It's to look at the past and say, look, as good or bad or indifferent as it was, I can do better because I am a Christian, because I have Jesus, and the very name means God saves. God is salvation. You were committed to that with baptism. So it's not a matter of looking into the past to pine for what isn't. Look into the past to learn what you may learn from it.
It can tell you a lot. But look to the future with your dreams and your hopes and look to Jesus Christ with the strength to accomplish some of it, at least to make a beginning of it. Christ never never put a premium on 100% success. He wants us to try. He says pick up your cross and follow me.
Try to do it. And the fact that you see these stations with our blessed lord falling three times, remember that's not in the scriptures at all. Why do you think that so whoever invented these stations or wherever they came from, why do you think they represent Christ as falling three times? Because they knew he was human. He was carrying a cross.
It was a tough job. It was excruciating. And he fell under the cross three times but got up. Because that's the message of hope. Christianity is not a message of despair or pessimism.
It's a hard message. Christ said pick your cross up. He didn't say pick up a feather bed and put it in a nice comfortable place under very air conditions conditions and and go to sleep. He said pick up your cross and follow me. Notice he is out in front leading, carrying.
And so the message that the new year brings is a message of hope no matter what condition we find ourselves in. It's not a matter of thinking of what isn't. Think of what can be with the strength of Jesus Christ. You cannot do it alone. Christ said, without me, you can do nothing.
He said that. Of course, we we try to prove him wrong, you know, but you know who gets proved wrong. Let's think of the hound of heaven, Thompson's famous poem, the picturing Christ coming after us like a hound dog going after a rabbit or a fox. That's how God in his son Jesus Christ is pursuing us. And he overtakes us, but he doesn't overwhelm or overpower us.
That's what I have to do. And as Cardinal Newman said, we all have our work to do. God has given me under whatever conditions I find myself. They may be so hopeless that I'm not I'm reduced almost to a vegetable. Last night a friend of mine, we grew up together from the third grade.
His wife has been living for the last four years absolutely without any apparent consciousness of anything. Now you say, has she a work to do? I say, yes. She has a work to do, and she is doing it. That woman is even now the core of a family of four sons and of husband, And it's bringing them closer together.
It's bringing them closer to what is life all about and trying to answer it in the concrete. We as Newman said, we all have a work to do that God has given us. And he goes on as only Newman can go do it to analyze that thought. I was going to bring it in and read it to you but it's a little early in the morning and you know it is the first day of the new year. We'll reserve it for some other time.
But it's a magnificent presentation of this idea. We don't look back and say, oh, I'm such a failure, even God doesn't care for me. It's like a man I met at Saint Elizabeth down at the the old Gallinger Hospital. He tried to commit a commit suicide. He got himself on a chair, put his head in, very carefully put some the latest newspaper, I hope it was the Washington Post, put it into the oven of his gas stove, then he sat down on the chair and put his head into the oven intending to commit suicide.
Well, he wound up down in Gallinger because apparently he passed out and slid off the the chair. And he felt that he was such a failure that he couldn't wasn't even successful in committing suicide. That was really irked him to the core. Well you could say better luck next time. Don't let's be that way.
Let's know who we are. You are sons and daughters of Jesus Christ, sealed with his name, and his name means salvation. It means you do look into the future, that you do what you can, that you're not submerged and incapacitated by the past, whatever it's been. But you look at the cross and say, I have a savior, and in him, I can do everything. Happy New Year.
The name of the father and of the son, holy spirit. Amen.