• New Year’s Resolutions may be notorious for their attrition rates, but that should not stop Christians from making them. The changing over of the calendar year is a great opportunity for disciples of Jesus to assess where He might be calling us to grow and to make a firm decision to follow Him more closely. 

    Here are a few suggestions for formulating a New Year’s Resolution that will help you grow in love for the Lord in 2021:

     

Choose a virtue to focus on this year

The Catholic tradition acknowledges seven main virtues: the four cardinal, or “human,” virtues (prudence, justice, courage, and temperance), which grow in us by our own natural efforts; and the three theological virtues (faith, hope, and love), which can only be gained directly through a gift of God. 

The Catechism says of the virtues that they “[allow] the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions.” (CCC 1803) 

Are you currently giving the best of yourself – at work, for example, or in prayer, or in your interactions on social media? Is there a particular virtue that you know would assist you in making a generous gift of your life? Think of a simple choice you can make every day to grow in that virtue this year, and mark your calendar for one day each month to pause and examine how God has been challenging and assisting you as you strive to be more virtuous. 

 

Soak in Scripture

God’s Word can never be exhausted; it is always “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12) – meaning its ability to pierce our hearts and produce new action of the Holy Spirit within us is unquenchable. If it feels like God has been distant or silent in your life this year, perhaps a good New Year’s resolution would be to immerse yourself more fully in the Scriptures in 2021. 
 

You might begin by choosing one of the Gospels and working your way slowly and prayerfully through it. For the more ambitious types, Ascension Press just announced that they are releasing a new podcast called “The Bible in a Year” with Fr. Mike Schmitz (Augustine Institute has their own print version of the same concept); imagine having read the entire Bible by January 1, 2022! 

Decide to follow one of these schedules, or choose another way to make Scripture a more regular part of your daily life. The point is, you can’t go wrong by “soaking” in the Word of God this year. 

Let the Saints inspire you

This year has had its share of oversized problems. For many of us, it can feel like there is nothing that we can do to fight against disease, injustice, and wide-scale suffering. But as Catholics, we can never allow even the most overwhelming crises facing our world to discourage us; we know that Jesus calls us to holiness and that it is through our faithfulness to this call that He wants to transform the face of the earth.

In his 1988 apostolic exhortation Christifidelis laici, Pope John Paul II said that saints “have always been the source and origin of renewal in the most difficult circumstances in the Church’s history” (Christifidelis laici, 16). Friends, we are living through a difficult moment in the Church’s history, but God has chosen us for such a time as this. It is not first and foremost through high-powered institutions or impassioned coalitions that God’s Kingdom is made manifest in the world; it is through the simple “yes” of people like you and me when we give our lives generously to God and strive to become saints. JPII knew this – which is why he became a saint, and why he has since inspired so many others to do the same.

This year, we would do well to spend time learning about some great saints who were called to stand up courageously to the culture in which they lived, asking them to pray for us and working to imitate their bold witness to the Gospel. John Paul II was certainly a striking example of the power of holiness to transform culture; St. Thomas More, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Damian of Molokai also stand out as exemplary models for us as we navigate the challenging times in which we live. Pope Francis has also declared that in 2021 the Church will celebrate the Year of St. Joseph (one of the greatest saints of all!) and has invited all Catholics to reflect more deeply on his life and virtues, making him a wonderful choice as well. 

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My prayer is that these humble suggestions will be a help to you as you choose a New Year’s Resolution. Remember the words of St. Paul, who exhorted us to “do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).  Let us make it our aim to live that way more perfectly in 2021. 
Sarah Carter lives in St. Paul with her husband, Will, and her son, Elijah. She and her family attend the Church of St. Mark and are members of the St. Mark Young Adult community. Sarah graduated from the University of St. Thomas in 2014, spent two years serving as a campus missionary for Saint Paul’s Outreach in Columbus, Ohio, and returned to St. Paul in 2016 to begin study for her master’s in theology at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity, which she completed in 2019. Now she teaches moral theology and Scripture at Hill-Murray School.