~by Susi Pittman

Each “new year” brings the hope and promise that a better life, state of mind, financial security, health improvements, charitable commitments, family relations and more can move in a more positive fashion. It seems as though the world, for a moment celebrates in a unified manner such possibilities.

This feeling is one that we need to adopt all year long, offering our lives to God, the One through whom infinite possibilities exist.

HOWEVER, because of the media hype regarding the 2012 Demise of the World, that feeling of positive forward motion for some has been re-routed.

So what to do?

This is my plan.

Establish a spiritual checklist first and then all other aspects of the year’s experiences and life changing events will all fall into their proper perspective.

• Turn to Jesus in a continual daily prayerful life
• Forgive those who hurt me, no matter what
• Honor God by attending Mass regularly
• Donate time, talent and treasure to my Parish and a chosen charity
• Telling those close to me that I love them…every day
• Be patient and tolerant…forgive
• Offer all I do to Jesus and ask that it be done according to His will

I believe that according my life back to God as a gift, He will purify me of earthly attachments and fears and strengthen my purpose for life.

To move in the new year and all year long in the proper motion, is to walk by faith and not by sight. It is in doing so that the soul matures and grows in love, a love that “lays down its life for the beloved.”

In the words of a great saint:

I hope for much from Your bounty, O Lord, because You Yourself teach us to ask, to seek, and to knock; at Your word, I ask, I seek, I knock. O Lord, You who tell us to ask, grant that I may receive; You who tell us to seek, grant that I may find; You who teach us to knock at the door, open to the one who is knocking! I am weak; strengthen me. Bring me back, because I have wandered away, and revive me, because I am dead. According to Your good pleasure, direct and govern my senses, my thoughts, and my actions, that I may live by You and give myself entirely to You.” ~ Saint Augustine ~

And don’t forget, what we say reciting the Rosary following the end of the Our Father;

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning is NOW and ever shall be WORLD WITHOUT END. Amen

By reciting the Glory Be, we acknowledge the eternal plan of God as revealed to us in the last chapter of the New Testament, Revelations.

Revelations tells us that the Earth will transition, NOT end:

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and the sea is no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for husband…”Behold, I make all things new!” (Revelations 21:1-2,5)

The footnote in the Douay Rheims Bible to the above scripture tells us that: The quality of the earth will be changed, but not the substance: there will be some resemblance between the old and the new.

October 22, 1978, just a few days after his election as pope, Pope John Paul II told all the world, “Be not afraid. Open wide the doors to Christ. To his saving power upon the boundaries of states, economic and political system, the vast fields of culture, civilization, and development. Do not be afraid!”

And I might add, upon specters of purported impending doom.

We are given each day to “live in the moment.” If we are here, present on the earth, we have purpose! Find it! Do it!

If there is one thing I have learned from the beautiful animal family that I have had the joy to share life with, it is to live in the NOW. Let’s live our “now” in the providence of God as they do, trusting in His plans for us, and be drawn to Him to live in the “forever now” of His kingdom.

Whether that happens by natural cause or otherwise, it will be living life with a peace that cannot be taken from you.

Wishing you all a Happy Whole Year in the love of Jesus!

Peace,

Susi

Susi Pittman is founder of CatholicStewardsofCreation.com and Owner-President of Twin Oaks Publishing; she is author of Animals in Heaven? Catholics Want to Know!; an advocate for the Florida Catholic Conference; a member of the St. Joseph’s Catholic Council of Women in Jacksonville, Florida; an Associate of the Sisters of St. Joseph, St. Augustine;a member of the Florida Publishers Association, Independent Book Publishers Association, the National Association of Professional Women, the ASPCA, the Humane Society of the United States and the National Audubon society.