My prayer and wish for all here at St. Catherine of Siena Church is that the New Year is filled with God’s abundant blessings of peace, joy and an ever-growing and -deepening faith in Jesus Christ and His gift of Eternal Joy. †

The New Year provides so much hope and opportunity for us: from getting in shape and changing old, bad habits into newer and better ones; it is a time for us to raise-the-bar of how we are going to live our lives anew, of being better, doing better and seeking better things for us and our families— in finding true joy.

But somehow February rolls around and many, if not all, of our “hopes and opportunities” get derailed as the comfort and ease of the past takes hold of our new path forward.

But even with our derailments, the desire and hope of Christ remains the same: that we all unwrap His gift of Eternal Gladness, living in and amongst the Wonder, the Joy and Glory of God the Father in Heaven for all eternity. This is God’s Will!

As we just celebrated Christmas—the Nativity, or birth, of the Lord—we should in the New Year turn our attention away from the earthly focus on Santa Claus and presents and rather draw our minds and hearts toward the Lord and His great gift. While the Nintendo’s and Legos and Lexus’s may bring happiness, albeit it temporary, to humanity the real gift of Christmas—Eternal Gladness—brings Joy. From John 15:11 we hear “Jesus speaks about joy, and not just in passing circumstances. These words come at the Last Supper, when Jesus is giving some of his final words to his apostles before his passion. Obviously what he said was pretty important to him. ‘… your joy may be full.’”