Homily for New Year's Day

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Homily for January 1
(Scriptures for today's Mass)

Audio for homily

And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart…

And not just Mary, but all mothers do this:

they store up memories of their children:

to keep them, hold on to them, to treasure them

lest they ever be lost.

And not just mothers, but all of us.

We all keep memories in our hearts,

continuing to reflect on them as the months and years pass by.

I’m wondering this weekend, this New Year’s weekend,

what memories of 2015 you and I are keeping, storing,

holding in our hearts?

Was 2015 a good year or a hard year?  a happy year or a sad year?

A healthy year or a year of sickness?

Was it a year of gain or a year of loss?  

A year of pain or a year of peace?

Did the year just past seem to fly by

or did it creep at a snail’s pace?

My physical heart has only four chambers

but my soul’s heart has many more than four.

What memories have filled the many chambers of my heart

over the past year?

Am I holding some hurtful memories

alongside the happy ones? 

Am I holding on to some resentments and grudges?

Have I refreshed my heart’s chambers

with compassion, forgiveness, and peace-finally-made?

Is there a chamber in my heart now empty

because I’ve lost someone  I loved?

Have I locked up that empty place - or left it open,

waiting for it to be filled with consolation and healing,

with fresh affection – and with memories of my beloved?

In the past year did my heart expand to accommodate

everything that came my way?  peace and pain alike?

Did my heart enlarge to welcome God’s grace in my joys

and his gentle touch upon my grief?

In 2015 did I turn to the Lord living in my heart:

to lean on his strength in my weakness,

to depend on his counsel in my doubt,

to seek his wisdom in my confusion,

to reach for his companionship in my loneliness?

Mary would come, eventually, to keep in her heart

not only the joyful recollections of Jesus’ birth

but also the painful memories of his suffering and death.

And so it is with us, too.

Our hearts are the storehouses of all that has shaped us

to be the persons we are becoming and have become.

And our hearts are the Lord’s dwelling place

where he comes to forgive our sins, to heal our wounds,

to calm our fears and to give us the peace

that comes only from his heart, from his hand.

This New Year’s day might be a good time for us

to take a little stroll through the chambers of our hearts

and, with the Lord’s help, empty out, sweep out,

what might be better left behind as a new year begins.

If we’ve been living in the chambers of sadness

it might be time, again, to enter the chambers of gladness --

and ask the Lord to make his presence known and felt again,

in the good memories we’ve held and kept in our hearts.

For sure, the year ahead

will find its own share of blessings and sorrows filling our hearts

but with the Lord’s help

we can come to accept and even treasure it all

and find peace in good times and hard times alike.

Every week we come to the Lord’s table

and here we keep the memories of Christ’s birth,

not just at Christmas time but every week,

and we keep the memory

of his suffering, death and resurrection.

And every week the Lord who gave his life for us on the Cross

fills our hearts with his living presence

in the bread and cup of the Eucharist.

Pray that in 2016 we, like Mary, will keep in our hearts

the memories of our blessings

and treasure them in peace, in a new year of grace.

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