by f. Themistocles Mourtzanos
“New Year’s resolution” is an English tradition.
People are asked to think about their lives and make resolutions on New Year’s Eve, so as the new year will find them on a path of change.
Many of us, of course, are lagging behind in determination. Usually we are either content or cowards and we are afraid to toil. This is because we do not deliver ourselves to other persons easily and with our heart, nor we easily change our course of existence.
“Ego”, “entitlement” and “I want” prevail today. “Ego” makes us think that everything is meant for us, that we are the center of the world and that we do not have to take into account the reactions and perceptions of others.
We are entitled to everything because we are unique! Since the world is revolving around us, why not have whatever we want? Life and others owe it to us!
Signs of this behaviour are: the pattern of consumption that strengthens the priority of desires, not for love and sharing, but for conquest; dealing with our wounds – through mental health sciences too – not in order to forgive and be forgiven, but to justify our behavior; the Social Media, where we feel good, because there is a public that accepts us and the comments on the photos we upload show that we are not alone.
For the Church, however, time is a unique gift from God to man, in order, for the latter to find a meaning and live it! And it would be an interesting proposition for New Year’s resolutions to think of a different course beyond the management of our everyday life.
Being aware of our origins from God as His images, let us decide to relate to the purpose of our existence, as it was given to us from heaven: to live with God and our neighbour in the manner the Kingdom specifies, that is love in its cross-dimension, which is the absolute kenosis, a fruit of love. Love is incompatible with “little”. It wants it all.
It is not familiar with fatigue and moderation. It makes existence totally giving, both towards God through prayer and practice, and towards the fellowman. Someone in love is sensitive, and can see and foresee pain, lack, need. A person in love consoles for the deeds, death, defeat. And that person invents ways to meet with the other, by making time a feast!
Such icons are the Saints. They, in fact, have been sanctified because they have shown us the path of virtue. We are called upon to return there. To make goodness our first choice again. To find the zeal that makes us escape the fear of fatigue.
To find the confession of truth, which, for the man who believes, is Christ. To find humility, which makes us not to be disappointed by other people, but to give them opportunities. To find the love that leads us to place ourselves in other people’s shoes, and to like authentically, beyond our ego!
It seems impossible for people’s common sense to make such a New Year’s resolution. It is against the hardness of many. But it is a resolution of an authentic ecclesiastical way of existence, because time without God and love makes no sense!
