First Things First

In recent days, between Christmas and New Years, I enjoyed catching up with some families who have been long-time friends of mine. In one family, their grandson, around 10 years of age, had just received a new Lego set at Christmas and was building it there. While he has been fascinated with lego sets for most of his young life, he has now moved on to gigantic, complicated Lego projects that I had little idea even existed. This project was an elaborate spaceship/station and what he had assembled was already about 2 square feet in size. I was surprised to find out that while he had already used 5 bags of Lego materials for this project, there are a total of something like 17 bags to complete the construction. A bit later, he called out from across the room asking, “Do you want to see the instructions manual?” I said, “sure!” He then presented me a spiral bound picture manual nearly 2 inches thick, with pages roughly 8” x 17” in size, showing how every piece fits together. He was having the time of his life! I was stunned by the complexity of the project and by how developed his mental acuity is for this. I can only imagine where his already adept engineering mind will take him in his life.

With a new year often comes the resolve to begin some self-improvement plan, to work on a particular behavior or give up some particular vice. It’s a time when people seek to “start over” on some new trajectory with the hope of improving their lives, their health, their relationships and more. Sometimes people seek the guidance of others in trying to accomplish this personal makeover in their habits, their routine, their approach to something. Many times, however, people with the best intentions jump into something without much planning or consideration, only to get discouraged and give up on the idea.

Like my friends’ grandson and his Lego project, it is better if we follow a kind of “instruction manual” for the Christian life. Ask anyone who attends Church on Sunday if they want to go to heaven and they’ll probably affirm that they do.  At the same time, ask them what they are doing to obtain some share in the eternal life our Lord has prepared for us, and they might hesitate a bit. So, what “instruction manual” are you following in order to enter into eternal life? Throughout this new year, a Jubilee Year, I hope to review some of the basics of the Christian life.

While navigating life is not the same as assembling a complex Lego set, it does require that we put first things first.  In the Book of Deuteronomy, 6:4, we read: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength...” What, then, is the first thing we need to get right in the Christian life?  We need to make life all about GOD and not ourselves. A simple review of the 10 Commandments reveals that Commandments 1-3 are about our relationship with God. What follows, Commandments 4-10, are about our relationship with others.

Recently, I heard a podcast with Jim Caviezel, the actor that played Jesus in the movie, The Passion of the Christ. At one point, Caviezel said, “Our Good God is not loved enough.” Yet what is enough? To love God with all our heart and mind and soul means pleasing God must be a lifelong striving to know, love and serve him and to avoid all that offends him. Far from placating God by checking the “went to Mass” box on Sunday, the right ordering of our lives begins with getting this straight. Everything else in the Christian life must be built on this great commandment.

So, if you want to push the “reset” on your life as a Christian, do first things first. Take a few minutes to be alone with the Lord in prayer, and just talk to him. Don’t rattle off prayers but make these few moments a kind of heart-to-heart with him. First, praise him as sovereign Lord, and honor him as maker of heaven and earth, and deserving of all your love. Then, admit to the Lord that you have sinned, having had other priorities in your life, and ask for his forgiveness and mercy. Furthermore, renounce anything in your life that is contrary to the gospel and ask him to send the Holy Spirit to enter into those empty places that have been renounced. Then praise him for all the graces and blessings he has bestowed upon you, though unworthy you may have been. Lastly, ask him to take charge of your life and reveal whatever it is that he wants you to know or experience.

A new year is upon us, and this is a Jubilee Year. In the Old Testament period, the people of Israel celebrated a Jubilee Year after 49 years. At the heart of the Jubilee Year was the forgiveness of debts, owed to others and to God. Now it is a return to a right-ordering of our lives. For us, as well, the focus of the jubilee year is upon obtaining plenary indulgences, the cancellation of our time in purgatory, both for ourselves and our deceased relatives and friends.  By entering the cathedral or another designated church through the Jubilee Door and fulfilling the requirements of prayer, penance, attending Mass and having complete detachment in one’s life from sins, one may obtain a plenary indulgence. This is the full remission of purgatory time, which entails the temporal punishment due to sin.

By putting first things first, placing God at the center of our lives, we will soon discover how disordered our lives have been as we have “put God off for other things.” With this right ordering, we will be drawn to seek God’s mercy through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Then, as we take advantage of the spiritual graces of this Jubilee Year, there will be a new vitality in our spiritual lives, with God at the helm and we at HIS service.

Among the various New Year’s resolutions you have either made or considered, let me encourage you to put first things first and enjoy the benefits and peace of a well-ordered life, where pleasing the Lord is a fire that the Holy Spirit ignites in you, but for the asking!

Let me leave you with this...

Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone!

Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God,

with your whole heart,

and with your whole being,

and with your whole strength.

Take to heart these words which I command you today.

Keep repeating them to your children.

Recite them when you are at home and when you are away,

when you lie down and when you get up.

Bind them on your arm as a sign,

and let them be as a pendant on your forehead.

Write them on the doorposts of your houses, and on your gates.

~ Deuteronomy 6:4-9

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