A new calendar year is upon us: 2020 Anno Domini (“in the Year of our Lord”). For most of us it is a time to reflect on this past year 2019 and look forward with hope and anticipation for a new year with new possibilities. As the author and keeper of our lives, God our Heavenly Father has gifted each of us with the same amount of days, hours, minutes and seconds within a year for whatever number of years each of us has in our personal destiny.
I enjoy keeping a journal pretty much daily, and for many years have had the ritual of reading my journal entries for that year sometime in late December and naming the year. I have had the “Year of Job,” the “Year of Surprises,” the “Year of New Life,” etc. This helps me review my year and look at the “Rhythm of my life.” How am I using the time that God gifts me with? What are some things that are important to include in my daily life?
Pope Francis: “Freedom of choice makes it possible to plan our lives and to make the most of ourselves. Yet if this freedom lacks noble goals or personal discipline, it degenerates into an inability to give oneself generously to others.”
Recognizing that everything belongs to God (my life, my family, my time) I strive to plan my daily life in order to “Know Him, Love Him, Serve Him.” I am very grateful to God for the rhythm of my life. Presently, I have the blessing to walk, talk and pray at 5:15 in the morning with Mauri several times a week; to spend a couple of hours in the kitchen daily between breakfast and lunch preparation and cooking for dinner; to invest well over 40 hours a week in Family Ministry with the diocese meeting yearly hundreds of engaged couples, married couples and families (through training programs, marriage preparation retreats, mother daughter programs, Strong Catholic Families, Strong Catholic Youth sessions, etc.) , visit the Blessed Sacrament at the Basilica or our chapel during afternoon break, visiting family and friends, and playing hide and go seek with my six-year-old grandson and reading to him almost every night.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8: “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven — a time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance …”
And yet, I know I must continually adjust the rhythm of my life to include those things that my heart is tugging at me to consider whether it is to serve others or for personal enrichment to gain a better balance in life. I have been struggling to include time to call and/or visit my uncles and neighbors and to take time to play my trumpet. (I played trumpet with the Mariachi Las Rancheritas for 10 years in the ’70s, early ’80s; can be seen on YouTube).
Although my work/ ministry includes most weekends of the year, Mauri and I rejoice in having contact with hundreds of engaged and convalidating couples each year. [In 2019: 814 couples attended a Diocesan Marriage Preparation Retreat: 278 Convalidating couples and 536 engaged couples (1,072 young adults)] Meeting these couples gives me so much hope for the building up of God’s Kingdom in our present world. Although these young adults live in a society often filled with conflicting messages and values, these couples have come to our parishes because they want to marry in the Catholic Church, because they want to grow in their faith; and we are so blessed to have them. The majority of them state in their written evaluations of the retreat that they desire to continue and/or augment their prayer life and their service to the Church.
Pope Francis: “The family is called to join in daily prayer, to read the word of God and to share in Eucharistic communion, and thus to grow in love and become ever more fully a temple in which the Spirit dwells.” May the Holy Spirit guide each of this New Year to adjust the rhythm of our life to better know, love and serve our God.
Lydia Pesina is the director of the Family Life Office